The Storm
by Patriot868
Summary: The Clouds of War have burst! The Crystal Eyes, ancient enemies of the grox, launch a fleet to assist the heros of the Tale of Tesseract. Part of TTOT. This is just a basic summary. First Story. Reviews will help me write faster and will influence story.
1. The Start of the Movment

The Storm

Welcome readers to the story The Storm. Before we dive into the story, let me explain it a little. It is set at the same time as the Tale of Tesseract, but is located farther down the arm of the galaxy, more towards the core. This story details a race known as the Crystal eyes traveling from there arm of the galaxy to the arm of the galaxy were the other stories in the TTOT collab are. Well that's enough chatter, lets get one with the story.

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Marius, Omnipotent Leader of the Crystal Eyes, hurried through the streets of Valas, capital city of the Crystal Eyes's Home world of Sellion. Glancing up, he noted the dark clouds over head, harbingers of a heavy rain storm. As thunder rolled across the sky, he picked up the pace and arrived at his destination, the Capitol building of Valas, the tallest structure in the empire. He walked quickly through the ornate lobby and proceeded to the receptionist's terminal.

"I'm here for the meeting" He said calmly. "Alright commander, head to the elevator on the right and go on up" the receptionist responded.. Nodding briefly, Marius strode to the elevator. While its true the Crystal eyes have teleporters, the elevator offered a magnificent view of the city. Marius quickly punched in the Floor number, then proceed to relax and watch the scenery as the elevator ascended quickly. Arriving at the his floor, he strode forward and entered the room. Gathered around the table were twelve other Crystal Eye's, the joint leaders of the Empire. "Gentlemen, good day, we have lots to talk about and little time" Marius stated. "Agreed lets get down to business" one of the others leaders stated, a Crystal Eye's named Ammox. " Alright first things first, what is the company of Pyrotech up too? Marius queried "Well commander, they are in the process of developing blueprints for a turret, we will have more information for you as it develops" Ammox replied.

"Excellent, and what about void, have the made the two way stargates we asked for" Marius asked "No sir, they had to split their scientists to also widen the range of interstellar teleporters, they are still working out the bugs" another board member answered. Oh well, Marius thought, now for the boring part of the meeting " Alright, lets hear the colonial reports" he said dejectedly. "Certainly sir", and so the most boring part of the meeting began. While the board members droned on, Marius's thoughts drifted to his deeds in the great war between the crystal eyes and the grox. Sighing he turned back to the meeting, when all the screens suddenly with static and changed to video being broadcast. " The board members heads all snapped up alert and looked at the screens. "Were is that video coming from" "Trace it quickly" "We have a breach!" "Prepare a counter attack"

"SILENCE" Marius roared. Silence descended throughout the room. "Let the message play" he stated simply. The board all turned to the screens. " Understand this, people of the Aeron galaxy, we are in terrible times, a time of darkness a destruction" Ammox turned to Marius and whispered " Why is there a Grox talking about destruction like it's a bad thing, the Grox love destruction" Marius whispered back " I am not sure" The message continued, and as it continued the board members faces grew more and more grim. "The original staff, know as the arcane biorod or mysterious staff of life..." Marius whispered to Ammox " Wonder what the arcane staff of life is". The message continued to play. The creatures on the stage suddenly demonstrated abilities given to them. "Holy Spode, look at that" Marius murmured to himself. " Everyone must work together to cast out the darkness, everyone must.." Suddenly the transmission cut out.

"What, NO!, we must get that signal back" Marius exclaimed. " On it sir" one of the board members shouted. As they worked, Marius stewed over the recent events. The Grox launching an invasion, a false god, and something called a tesseract. That darkness, he thought, that's what the core planets noted, they said there was a spike of dark energy, unlike anything they have ever seen. Well, he thought the end is coming, but we will face it head on.

" Sir look!". The exclamation of one of the board member snapped him out of his thoughts. The message continued. " The grox will attempt to attack sol III, we are not sure why..." Marius looked surprised and stated " Sol III, Steve mentioned that place, I could never find it though, neither could are fleets". Finally, the message ended.

The room was silent. Suddenly a roll of thunder was heard and the rain came pelting down. "Symbolic is it not, Gentlemen, a storm has burst through out the galaxy, war has arrived, Its time for us to begin the assault, we will help those strange aliens, and we will fulfill are destiny" Marius stated gravely.

Looking at Ammox, he asked " When will the fleet of Harmonious Cleansing be ready to launch" "Sir, the fleet will take one hour to assemble before launch" Marius nodded " Excellent, notify are allies, tell them to follow us to the arm of the galaxy the message was broadcasted from, bring us down to defcon one, an Apocalypse scenario Has begun" The other board members nodded and went to their assigned jobs. Marius stated one word clearly "Ascend".

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*On the bridge of the Inheritor*

Marius appeared on the bridge of his ship, the Inheritor. This ship had a whole class of ships named after it and was his vehicle of choice. "Khamul, Prep all combat system" His first mate Khamul nodded " Yes sir, I saw the broadcast, is it really that grim a situation?" Marius nodded gravely. "Well, we'll just have to meet them head on" Khamul stated. Marius smiled, Khamul had been his first mate since the beginning and was his closest friend. Marius checked the status of his ship and was happy to see that the order of Dark matter bombs he had requested had arrived. Unlike other capitans, Marius was more partial to massive flagships, instead of smaller frigates, although he had no problem with them either. An hour passed, the fleet had arrived. Thousands upon thousands of vessels, of all different designs and sizes from the small light runners to the massive Inheritor and Ascension classes. "Khamul, tell the fleet to hold, I have to check something" Marius stated. Khamul nodded and informed the fleet. Marius ran quickly, despite having full power armor and weapon systems on. He arrived at his quarters and opened them quickly.

Stepping into his furbished room, he quickly crossed to a small slot in the wall. He quickly keyed in a complex 84 numbered code and examined the contents. Inside was not one, but two staffs of life.

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Well that's the first chapter done with. Feel free to PM me or send me an email with any questions. My email is . Do not fret, I will explain the anatomy and back story of the Crystal Eyes in the next chapter, which will be completely informative. Also don't forget to send me feedback, what you want to see added, any ideas you want to see added. If you want to see what everything looks like, my spore name is conquer5. Also check out the other collab writers like Lady Heston of Blooming shire, njkillen, Vee Vee Nightingale, Warrior wolverine and ravenstarwolf. remember, reviews will help the crystal eyes morale, which will lead to more victories. And TTOT writers, uh guys, don't forget to criticize me, this is my first fanfiction and I need a little guidance. Also, the story will ramp up a lot more, this is just the exposition. Also, I will write the disclaimer at the end, its much easier. Also, I say also to much, and its pretty annoying. Just send any feedback. Sincerely, Patriot868

Disclaimer, Everything showing up as conquer5 is my property, anything else on sporepedia belongs to their respective owners, Spore is owned by Maxis. Also, I got permission to write this and did this with permission, I am not a freeloader or a plagiarist.


	2. The Past Explained

The Storm

Chapter 2

Welcome back to the story of the storm. As promised, this will be a major descriptive chapter giving a basic back story about the crystal eyes and their involvement with the Grox. Now lets get to the story

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The crystal eyes are a peculiar race. Despite looking reptilian in nature, they give birth to live young. Also for some reason, they have large eagle like wings, webbed feet, and spikes growing out of their chests. The most distinguishing feature about them is the crystals that grow on them. They have a tiny cluster of crystals on their shoulders that are usually covered by clothing. The other bit is the massive clumps on their face.

Any interesting thing to note is that they have actual eyes. These eyes are located right behind their face crystals and of course given vision slightly better than the average human. They can use them to see if their crystals are obscured. The crystals themselves act as sensory organs also and provide dim images when they us both of their sensory organs together, their vision becomes much more enhanced and some strange phenomena kick in. Unlike most organic creatures, their eyes can zoom and can also flick to a view that is completely heat sensitive, like most reptiles on earth.

Now most people wonder how the crystal eyes could evolve these things, well they didn't evolve most of their features. They were created in a lab by the ancient Vorchians for one purpose, destroy the grox.

The Crystal Eyes made first contact with the grox thousands of years before the start of the TTOT collaboration. Originally, the Crystal Eyes attempted to ally with the grox. The grox asked them to do a simple mission, but little did the crystal eyes know, they were soon to be betrayed.

Marius, the now Omnipotent leader of the crystal eyes was piloting his ship, the original light runner during that mission. How did he survived the time span from then till now? The crystal eyes basically don't age at all, they literally live forever, unless of course they are killed by disease or any other weakness. Age just does not affect them. Anyways, Marius landed on the planet that they wanted him to go to. As he was flying low over the surface looking for the plant the Grox wanted, the grox ships following him contacted him stating that this was a trap and his end was near. Marius, along with Khamul and the rest of his crew dispatched the Grox ships and fled the area even as the fleets mobilized. He informed the rest of the empire about the Groxe's betrayal gathered a fleet, and launched the Great war. A war that would rage for millennia.

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The grox were crafty launching assaults deep into crystal eyes territory, once even attacking the home world of Sellion. As good as the grox were, the crystal eyes were there exact equals. The crystal eyes were fighting tooth and nail. Sometime during the war, Marius entered the center of the galaxy and got one of the copies of the staff of life. Both sides were locked in a stalemate. The crystal eyes weapon and ship technology was just a little better than the grox and they were too far away for any invasion to be feasible. The grox on the other hand, had 2400 star systems under there control, their fleet was much bigger, their teleportation technology was better, their medical science was better, their computers were better, more resources were available and they were far away. Eventually the crystal eyes grew tired of fighting, with more soldiers were coming back dead every day, so they prepared two plans. Plan 1 was shield worlds.

Shield worlds were a special type of planet , incredibly self sufficient and with heavy weapons, they were designed to protect the arm of the galaxy the crystal eyes resided in. For added insurance, the Crystal Eyes also uplifted several species around the core, as backup and a constant flow of external resources. These world kept that particular galactic arm safe until the long peace.

Plan 2 was Core watch. These planets were like shield worlds on steroids. The closet planet, Cinda, sat 1 parsec away from the galactic core. These planets had advanced cloaking devices and monitoring equipment. They served two purposes. One, create a strike place to hit the grox with out them knowing and from within their borders and two, monitor the core and watch for all anomalies.

The long quiet was the period when the crystal eyes were not attacked by the grox for thousands of years. It began when Marius gathered a small strike team that included Khamul and Ammox. The mission was simple, upload a modified mind eraser ray algorithm to the grox mainframe and make them forget all about the crystal eyes. They made it to Xorgo, quietly slipping past all defenses and arriving at the main source of all grox knowledge, the computer mainframe. The uploaded the Virus and departed quickly making all grox but one forget about the Crystal Eyes.

After that for a long time they were not disturbed by the grox. Not even the shield worlds, Nor core watch reported anything. Not even their remote outposts in other arms reported grox activity. Later the grox empire would fragment into smaller ones. This delighted the crystal eyes, for them, it was peace at last.

When Amy, of Grox and Kisses fame began to help unify the grox, the crystal eyes were enraged. To them, this empress was their main enemy. At one time they even had of fleet of commandos standing by to run an assassination mission not just against Amy and Kirk, but the other grox emperors to. Surprisingly, they did not know about Veara.

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Some time later, Capitan Dimitri reached the center of the galaxy and unleashed Agriath. The core worlds sensors went nuts with the reading of dark energy coming out of the galactic core. When it died down they launched several reconnaissance missions, but they all came back empty handed. The crystal eyes were zealots, but did not really buy into the religion. The just did it for the incredibly powered religious weapons and because you got to name things cool names like "Fleet of Harmonious Cleansing" and "Ascension Class". Around the time of the destruction of Thar, they finally implemented quatam computing. This technology not only allowed coding with zeros and ones, but also with threes and fours. White matter, supersolids and many other new tech came out, resulting in hundreds of new tools and weapons. The crystal eyes were on edge. All their shaman and ecologist allies said they felt a dark presence descending on the galaxy. So even as the heroes went to go do their broadcast, the Crystal Eyes prepared a new computer virus to aid them

The war began. The crystal eyes headed for that arm of the galaxy. Their destiny is approaching. The grox will know the name of the Crystal Eyes once again!

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Thanks for reading this new chapter! Don't forget to review. Since this is my first story, I really appreciate feedback. Also, thanks to VeeVeeNightngale for saying I can use Veara. It means a lot that you responded so quickly. remember, any comments are welcomed. PM with any questions you have.

Patriot868

PS. The cloaking technology is a lot like Primos.


	3. The lonsome Road

Welcome back readers! This chapter is going to be a lot longer than the previous ones and will include some of the first battles. It will also have Veara in it and the main Grox antagonist of this story. Well lets go!

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Talus sighed. Being the last Grox of the great war between the Crystal Eyes and the Grox was a pain, mostly because everyone thought he was insane when he mentioned it. If he wasn't one of the best admirals in the Grox fleet, they would have shipped him to an asylum. If the empire did, his crew would probably would attack them. His crew liked him because of his personalty and how he had a complete disregard for most orders from other admirals, especially from Veara.

He curled his lip in disgust at the thought of her. Its not because she was an Artlen, he was fine with that. It was because she was power hungry, rude, conniving, back stabbing, and liked to beat on her own crew members. He sighed, over the course of his several millennia long career, he had met many unsavory characters within the empire. Veara was by far the worst.

Now you may be wondering how Talus has lived this long. Well, during the Great War, he was part of an experiment to gain the Crystal Eyes infinite lifespan. Out of all the test subjects, only he survived the DNA transfer. The side effect was that occasionally it would hurt like a thousand stars detonating inside your body. The experiment also required advanced hardware, and this hardware preserved his memory when the cyber attack was launched that erased all Crystal Eyes data from the mainframe.

Talus's current mission was to build a massive network of naval bases, mining outposts and supply depots to help support the Grox fleet inside of what was the New Tharian empire. It was going well, all the bases had been finished and now his fleet was orbiting around one of said planets waiting for new orders.

"Admiral, we have an incoming transmission from high command" one of the Grox working on the bridge stated. Please don't be Veara, please don't be Veara Talus thought. "Who is it from" Talus asked "Veara sir" Dang it. Talus opened the comm channel and Veara's face appeared on the screen. "Admiral Talus, I am calling to see if the shipyards are ready" Veara stated. Talus nodded "They are ready, I have told you five times their ready. You and me both know the only reason you call is to rub your position of power in my face"Talus replied exasperated.

Veara just stared at him "Talus, I don't rub stuff in your face. If any thing, you rub stuff in mine, daily!" Talus laughed "Your darn right I do. But it does not matter, our petty rivalry will mean nothing when the Crystal Eyes arrive..." Veara raised her hand up "Stop, just stop, I don't want to here about your crazed war stories about any an enemy that does not exist, if it were up to me, you would be removed" Veara growled. Talus punched the terminate link button, and punched it so hard the plastic casing broke. he sighed and turned back to the charts, just to make sure everything was working.

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The fleet had arrived at the edge of the arm of the galaxy. Marius had decided that, to shave time off, they would jump through the empty space between arms. After gathering the necessary supplies they had made the jump. Currently, he was observing a strange spot in the middle of all the empty space. "Kahmul, were are the stars in that spot, theirs nothing there" Kahmul nodded "Sir, we are going to fire on it, if it has a cloaking device, this should deactivate it" Marius looked at the area again "Fire the Alpha Ion cannon!" The blue laser pulsed forward and sliced through the cloaking field.

" A Grox research outpost, in the middle of no were, quickly take out the turrets with the white matter rockets!" The rockets flew forward and the turrets exploded in a cloud of exotic particles. "Alright, Kahmul prepare a shuttle, you me and a team of commandos are going to infiltrate that base".

*Inside the base*

Marius finished off the wounded dronox with a blast from his exotic matter shoulder mounted cannons. Striding forward he impaled a grox soldier with his White matter lighting blade with out even blinking. "That's the last of them, now, lets find out what they were working on" Kahmul nodded and strode to the terminal. After observing the screen for several seconds, he turned to the commander "They were working on creating a weapon called the singularity missile, a missile capable of creating unstable black holes that could destroy ships, even if the have a wormhole key" Marius nodded " Well than, lets get those war heads on to the Inheritor and refit this base for are use" Marius than Shouted "Ascend"

*Several Hours later*

"Bring us around, we have to take out that Cannon" Marius roared. After leaving the research base, the fleet had continued on unmolested until they found a single solar system floating in the darkness. Upon entering it, they were confronted by a massive Grox naval base. This base was how the grox get from one arm of the galaxy to the other so quickly undetected. Marius was currently trying to take out a powerful cannon on the surface that was firing into orbit, damaging his ships. "Sir, they have it surrender by three shied generators, we have to take those out first" "Then do it!" Marius shouted. The nuclear chain gun, a device that fired mini nuclear shells incredibly quickly, spat three rounds out. "Now, take out the cannon with an exotic matter bomb" Marius commanded. The bomb streaked forward and annihilated the cannon. Marius sighed with relief "Good job, system secure, lets turn this place into our own base of operations". Several hours passed and they had completely refitted the planets into a Crystal Eyes naval base. Marius addressed the fleet "Men, that was a good practice run, but now comes the real challenge, our strategists believe the grox have almost completely conquered the rest of this arm, we are going to come in, destroy the grox outer bases, than push towards the location were the signal on that message was rerouted from, Is that clear!" The other ship masters roared in agreement. "Good, now we go to destroy the Grox, and fulfill our destiny!" The ships warped out, heading for the arm were the New Tharian empire had existed.

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Talus was at the end of his patience. Veara had decided to call again. He opened up the chat and spent several minutes arguing with her about who was the better leader. Right as he was about to close the link, severe pain shot through his body. He growled and collapsed on the terminal. When the pain shot through him, it meant something catastrophic would usually happen to the Grox later. This pain was so severe, he could barely open his eyes. "What now!" Veara said, exasperated. "Pain" he muttered "So much pain, a catastrophe is a approaching". Veara snorted "You are nuts, who would dare take on the Grox, besides those pesky heros, and if you say the crystal eyes, I will kill you" He stared up at the screen "An ancient enemy is traveling here, and it is indeed the Crystal Eyes, they come to bring death". Veara rolled her one organic eye "Do go on about them" she said sarcastically. Talus looked at Veara with hate in his eyes "You are as blind as Agriath, the crystal eyes are brutal, merciless, technologically advanced, and determined to exterminate us" He slowly stood up and steadied himself.

Veara just snorted again "Am I supposed to be afraid or worried, because I am not". Talus just looked at her with contempt "Veara, I am around three times older than you, I was around when we first made contact with them, I was around before your empire dragged itself from the Mud!" Now he was shouting " I alone know what they are capable of". He strode away quickly "I must prepare this sector quickly, we must not lose or they will keep coming until were all dead" He stopped and without turning around addressed Veara "Oh and that thing about you not being afraid or worried, you will be, oh you will, when their leader Marius finds you, you will know what fear is"

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Alright! Another chapter done. Reviews are welcome. Brief shout out to njkilleen, thank you for responding to my email and sending me the map of the galaxy, it really helps. remember to review. Till next time.

PS

I recently updated this chapter at the request of VeeVeeNightingale. I hope it is now satisfactory.

Patriot868


	4. Technology Explained

Welcome back to the Storm. This will be another descriptive chapter describing the crystal eyes technology. Well, lets go!

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The crystal eyes are warmongers, big time. If the Artlen's name means children of art, and the Starlen's means children of the stars, then the crystal eyes would be called the Warlens. That being said, their military technology has had a leap in the last couple millennia, going from the standard mega laser and other weapons, to more powerful and exotic ones.

The first weapon we will talk about is the WMD known as the deflation bomb. Operating on the same principals as the cleansing ray, this bomb will reduce a planet to T-zero in around one minute. It doesn't even break galactic code because empires are afraid it will be used on their home worlds. It is virtually useless against the grox and will probably not be seen in the story.

The second weapon is the Alpha Ion Cannon. After the discovery of white matter weapons, a Sellion based think tank began thinking of a laser to replace the white matter laser in current use. The Ion cannon was the result, a massive laser that sliced through other ships. While the Grox's armor on their ships can withstand the laser for a bit, it still rips them to shreds.

The annihilator is one of the most powerful weapons in the crystal eyes arsenal. It is incredibly expensive to use, but is an upgraded version of the Gravitation Wave. It annihilates all ships and buildings on a planet. High costs, however, mean this is a weapon of last resort.

Perhaps one of the best conventional air to ground weapons is the Barbette Cannons. Firing small pulses of Exotic matter at high speeds, this weapon can blanket ground areas quickly, decimating ground troops and buildings.

Despite the invention of all these different matter weapons, white matter, dark matter, exotic matter etc., nuclear weaponry has had a resurgence among the crystal eyes. The best mini nuclear weapon in the fleet is the nuclear chain gun.

Firing nuclear projectiles at high speeds, this weapon can absolutely wreck colonies and armies. However, its nuclear payload is not the largest. It still gets the job done though.

The nuclear death cloud is a special weapon. Firing multiple nuclear war heads at once, this weapon can take several cities out quickly. Many empires think the crystal eyes are brutes or uncivilized for using nuclear weapons instead of lasers. Many empires think that until their capitol city is crumbling beneath a mushroom cloud.

The last weapon I will look at, believe me there are a lot of weapons that the Crystal Eyes have, is the white matter and dark matter missiles. Technically there are two white matter missiles, one for large amounts of damage and one for obscene amounts of damage. Both are incredibly dangerous.

The dark matter missile the crystal eyes use is very dangerous, so dangerous that they only use the commercial version. The restricted version, of which only ten exist, can collapse a star. Since the crystal eyes had none of those missiles on board the Inheritor, they took the ones the Grox were developing.

Now, one to other technology!

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Space travel is very important to the crystal eyes. That is why they created Void technologies, a company specifically created to work on space travel. Void did not disappoint at all.

The most important space travel tool the crystal eyes have is the Warp Drive. Discarding the old dark matter drives they used, this is a combination of dark matter, white matter, and exotic matter, allowing for obscenely fast warps and a huge range.

The star gate is another important invention. Only deployed on planets far away from Sellion, it allows for almost instant transportation back to the home world. A two way star gate is currently in the works.

The four D teleporter is a very unusual technology. It allows for cargo to be teleported to any receiver within fifty parsecs. With extended range being worked on so it can be transported two hundred parsecs.

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Communication is vital in any war, and the current war for the Tesseract is no exception. Around the same time as quantum computing was developed, which was around one thousand years ago, faster than light communication was developed. All crystal eyes ships can talk uninterrupted from all the way across the galaxy.

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A/N Orginaly the crystal eyes empires age had to be reduced to fit story format. However, I reread a chapter from The tale of Tesseract, and was delighted to find out the universe is a lot older than thought to be. Therefore, the crystal eyes empire is incredibly old,

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Well this chapter is finished. If you have any more questions about the crystal eyes, please do not hesitate to send me a review or a PM.

Patriot868


	5. The Trap

Welcome back to The storm. Brief shout out to VeeVeeNightingale, thank you for your review and messages. Veara will be written differently from now on. I also will go back and edit her later. But enough chatter, its go time.

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The fleet was thirty minutes out. In thirty minutes, the grox would know the name Crystal Eyes once more. Marius stared at the biography of himself that was resting on the bed in his cabin. Over the course of his long life, many wars had been fought. Now, they were fighting to not only save the galaxy, but the multi verse also. He opened up the file on himself and added a quick statement. It read this " We Crystal Eyes are an old race, I am one of the oldest of said race, and have fought in many wars. The war we are about to wage is probably the most pivotal in the history of the universe, everything is riding on our success. If we, or are allies fail, than the vaults we have hidden across the galaxy will be the only reminder of our race, but we intend not to fail, we will not go quietly into the night, nor shall we be enslaved, we are crystal eyes, and we shall be victorious!" He sat back thinking until Khamul's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. " Commander, five minutes until the fleet hits the Grox controlled territory, we need you on the bridge". Marius stood up and quickly sprinted to the bridge. As he sat down in his chair, the fleet snapped to their destination. In front of them was a barren volcanic world and silhouetted against the planet, was a large grox fleet. "So it begins, the war that will determine our existence" Marius muttered. The fleet speed forward to meet the Grox.

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Over the course of the next couple days, the crystal eyes plowed through the Grox controlled space, space that had belonged to the New Tharian empire. The closer they got to Thar however, the heavier grox defenses were and the higher the casualty rate went up. Talus knew that the easiest way to kill the crystal eyes momentum was to kill Marius, so he assigned his underling, Rear Admiral Paxas to set a trap for them, a task which he did with vigor.

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"Commander" Khamul said " We are picking up strange energy readings from this planet". Marius looked at the screen curiously "Really? The only thing we have seen on this planet from orbit is a small grox mining operation. What sort of energy readings are they?" Marius queried. Khamul looked up "Strange, Vorchian energy readings". Marius was amazed, the Vorchians, the crystal eyes creators, had built an outpost all the way out here? "All right Khamul, since our ship is the only one in this sector currently, tell a small squadron to peel off from the main fleet and meet us here." Khamul nodded "Yes sir".

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Marius, Khamul, and the rest of the strike team assembled to enter the mine shaft stood on the surface of the planet, thanking Spode that they had environment shields because this place had no atmosphere and was hot as a spaceship exhaust port. They entered the facility quietly, letting the Verlocken, the stealth troops of the empire go first. They quietly slit the throats of the the dronox standing guard , and beckoned them to enter. They slunk through the mining facility, avoiding detection, eventually halting at the mine shaft, a massive cavern that went straight down. "Alright, us Crystal Eyes and drelocks will jetpack down there, using our wings to glide down, the Verlocken will use their glider packs on the account of them not having wings. Is that clear?" the assault team all nodded at Marius. "Good, lets see what's down here".

The group jumped down jetting quickly and gliding to slow themselves down. When they reached the bottom they were confronted by a large blast door. "Not a problem" one of the Drelock said, planting an exotic matter charge on the door. The group took cover and after the explosion went off, entered through the newly made entrance, inside was what appeared to be ancient Vorchian equipment, and resting on a pillar in the cent of the cave, was a strange cube like thing.

"What is that?" Marius asked. "That my dear enemy, is a tesseract" a voice boomed from the darkness. "What? Who? Show yourself!' Marius barked, charging his weapons. The voice laughed "Certainly". A screen suddenly revealed itself from the wall, with the face of a Grox smiling dominating it. "Allow me to introduce myself, I am Rear Admiral Paxas, Talus's subordinate, and sitting in front of you is a tesseract" Marius looked up at the screen "Who made it" Paxas looked down at the assault team with contempt "It was the Jaxxod's attempt at copying the real tesseract, an item of ultimate power, unfortunately, this copy is very flawed. It does not produce Alimar gas, it does not really advance technology, and it does not evolve sentient species. Marius walked over to the tesseract and lifted it up, eyeing it curiously "So, its useless?" he asked.

"Well, it does contain information on the Jaxxod's history and on their methods of transportation and quatam entaglment, but besides that, yes, its worthless" Paxas answered. " So what are you doing here" Marius asked. Paxas did not answer and terminated the video link. Paxas had done the one thing many villains never did, which was not reveal his plan.

"Ok, what the heck was that about!" Khamul asked. The communication channel for the Crystal eyes suddenly flared to life. "Commander!" the bridge commander shouted "The Grox have fired something at the planet, its probably a planet buster, were coming to pick you up!" Marius looked at the team "You heard them, we got to get out of here" They nodded and activated there jump jets, quickly jetting out of the mine shaft. A flash light up the world. "Sir the planet temperature is rising! We have to move quickly" one of the Drelock shouted. "I know! Inheritor, were are you, we need evac" "We got grox on us, were coming in but their blocking our teleports, your going to have to make a run for the cargo door" Marius was startled, he had never had to do something like this before. " Are you insane, we'll never catch up" " Were going to slow down as much as we can, your just going to have to try" Marius looked up and took a deep breath. "Alright, we'll do it. After informing the team, they began running. It was hard, it was getting hotter and the terrain was becoming uneven as the planets crust buckled. "Almost there, now your going to have to jump". Marius was about to ask why until he saw the huge ravine in front of them. If we miss were dead, Marius thought. Oh well, we signed up for danger. "Everyone get ready, JUMP!". They barely grabbed the ramp of the cargo hold, desperately scrabbling so they would not fall. Marius crawled on board and lay down for a second. "Were good, get us out of here, and I want you to find what ship that little gremlin Paxas is on" Marius stood up and strode towards the elevator. There will be a reckoning for this, oh yes there will.

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"Sir, the fleet has arrived" "Excellent Khamul, tell that light runner near us to take this tesseract to Omega 89 for study". Marius had recovered for the ordeal that he and the team had just escaped from. The fleet had indeed managed to track Paxas's signal to a nearby Grox naval base. The fleet was assembling and was prepping to warp there. We are getting closer to our destination, closer to were the signal was rerouted from, closer to that strange planet known as Thar. Marius watched as the light runner speed away to head to its destination. Well, he thought, its time to launch the assault. "All units, prepare for warp, we go to bring death to the Grox." the ships all warped forward, heading towards the planet that housed Paxas, getting ever closer to Thar.

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Well another chapter done. As always read and review. I promise to start putting more battles in as the story progresses. Also, if any TTOT writers are reading this, well, I haven't really got around to this but, thank you for allowing me to write in this wonderful universe. That's all for now.

Patriot868


	6. Empire Explained

Welcome back readers to The storm. This chapter will be about the crystal eyes empire as a whole. From a spice guide, to a guide about the class level, to a more detailed description of their cities. Lets go!

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Spice as a whole is one of the most important commodities in the galaxy. The crystal eyes hav discovered several new types of spice as well as renaiming several of them.

Red spice AKA chili powder: This red spice has basic properties. It is just a spicy food flavoring.

Yellow spice AKA sugar: There are two types of yellow spice. The very bright colored spice is very sour and is used in beverages. The darker colored yellow spice is sweet and is called sugar. It does rot teeth quickly though.

Green spice AKA mint: A minty fresh flavored spice used in tea galaxy wide

Blue spice AKA CuNP: There are two types of blue spice. The most recognized is the dark blue spice used in sleeping aides. The other spice is Navy blue, almost black, and is called CuNP. The later one is a blend of Copper, Nitrogen, and Phosphate. It is a deadly mixture used in just about every weapon.

Pink spice AKA Fairy Floss: Sweet and sugary, kids eat this stuff up.

Purple spice AKA UV powder: Again, two types of spice. Unlike blue spice, it is harder to tell the diffrence between these two, except UV powder is a little darker. While the lighter color is used in pudding, The darker is incrdibly deadly. It gives cancer in some form to all organic life, except for the grox. This spice is used in almost every WMD the crystal eyes have.

White spice AKA salt: Its salt. Good for cooking.

Orange spice AKA coriander: Another spice used for cooking.

Black spice AKA pepper AKA void dust: Two types of spice. The more common is ordinary black colored and is used in cooking. The other is much darker and even absorbs light. Super useful for construction, weapons, heck you can even toss some into an energy reactor and recharge the energy levels. The crystal eyes will destroy whoole empires just for one planet with this color spice.

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Class levels:

There are no slums or poor people in the empire. Only the wealthy and the middle class.

Unlike the Dronox or the Insectrox, the Drelock and Verlocken are cosidered full citizens, living happily side by side with the crystal eyes, their creator.

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Architecture:

Most of their architecture is very sleek and smooth. Soaring towers, Beautiful domes, Glass pyramids. Their millitary units are another story. The bases are very buly and efficent, the same can be said about their vehicles and space ships. Many colonies throughout the empire have converted the old millitary bases to be used as cities.

When the grox waged war on the Vorchians long ago, they built bases through out the arm the crystal eyes now reside in. Lots of said bases were abandoned. These were quickly refitted for crystal eyes use during the expansion. The grox architecture still stands today.

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Just a small chapter that I typed. Character bios and the stories continuation coming soon! Also, if you want to do art about this story or the characters, PM first. Then you can do what you want. If you have anymore questions, review or PM me.


	7. Marius's Bio

Welcome back to the story. I am just finishing up the last details on the next chapter, so these mini informative chapters will be done soon. Anyways, here is the first biography chapter, Marius's to be precise.

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Marius was born at the very beginning of the civilization stage, when the crystal eyes first created cities. The civilization stage of the crystal eyes was one of the fastest ever recorded, not because they discovered advanced technology, but because of how fast the nuclear war began.

When Marius was around thirty years old(Child age for the crystal eyes) his home nation discovered a small cash of vorchian technology, including the schematics for hydrogen bombs and for interstellar drives. It did not take long for the crystal eyes to begin building nuclear weapons.

When Marius was around one hundred and fifty(Around eighteen in human years) he joined the armed forces. His duty was to help guard where the missiles were being built. In just a few years the crystal eyes launched ICBM's at the other cities. It would take them several centuries to rebuild.

During this dark time, Marius transferred from the ground army to the space army. He was assigned to test the new Light Runner class ship. Setting out on the task, he did what many early space stage captains did, make a couple friends, explore the small part of the galaxy that they had, maybe try the mini laser out on the first ecodisaster.

It was apparent though that the crystal eyes needed a lot more territory, and so began the war of expansion. While technically not one war, it was a whole sale assault on all the surrounding empires. A few they allied(and are still allied today) but for the most part they annihilated every empire around them. During this war, many planets were terra formed to T1, had small colonies thrown up on them, and then were swiftly left behind. The huge cost of setting up a massive empire like this was highly expensive, leaving the colonists to make do with whatever they had and whatever structures were on the planet.

These buildings ranged from temples discovered on the planet, to small colony pods, to Grox bases left over from the Grox's war with the Vorchians. While this was going on, Marius was swiftly rising through the ranks of the navy. Finally, millennia later, the war ended with most of the immediate area colonized by the crystal eyes.

The Empire turned its eyes away from their immediate area and looked towards the center of the galaxy. Marius, now a renowned capitan, along with Khamul and the rest of the crew of the light runner, would attempt to get to the center of the galaxy.

Marius and Co were nearing the core systems when they ran into the Grox fleet, of which Talus was one of the captains. Originally, the crystal eyes attempted to ally with the Grox. They asked to do a mission and the grox gave them an easy one, find a plant. Arriving on the planet the grox betrayed them and tried to destroy them.

The rest is history. Marius and the crew of the light runner destroyed several grox ships and fled for there home systems. The great war began, a long war that would stretch for countless millennia.

The rest you know, now more about his personalty.

Marius is a loyal crystal eyes. He used to be more snarky and prankish when he was younger, but over the course of many millennia, he has become grim and serious. He does not care how many empires must burn before the grox fall and is totally unconcerned by civilian deaths. If you want something done, call him, but offer something of value.

He is very famous through out the empire and has a rabid fan base. One of the reasons he was running through the streets of Valas in chapter one was so that his fanbase would not recognize him. On many occasions female crystal eyes have asked him out but he politely declines every time. In his own words "If I die, I won't leave a depressed wife and a kid with no father". This does not stop Females from trying though.

Relationships with other characters:

Talus: They have a sort of competition between each other. They always talk civilly, even on the battlefield. You would think them friends almost. But make no mistake, Marius hates Talus much more than the average grox

Khamul: Khamul is several hundred years younger than Marius. While Marius is incredibly serious, Khamul is slightly more laid-back. This is apparent of how he actually accepts dates. Marius has always trusts Khamul and they are as close as brothers.

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Well this Bio is finished. I am going to type up Talus right now. His is far more interesting.


	8. Talus's Bio

Welcome back. I was on vacation for a couple of days and now I am back. So now, with out further delay, is Talus's bio.

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Talus is a unique Grox. Thanks to the experiment that bound his DNA with crystal eyes DNA, he gained their incredibly long lifespan, along with several other key differences to his physical and mental structure.

Physically he is a lot different from other Grox. He is moderately taller than the average Grox citizen and is built way better. He is stocky and muscular and unlike most Grox, is not frail in the slightest.

Coloring wise, he is a dark maroon color with strange patterns all over him. These are the markings of the Fist of Shadow, an elite combat regiment that he was part of during the Great War. The first thing that happened when you joined was the markings you were born with are burned off, then they add the new pattern of swirling black lines.

Talus is the last of these commandos, the others dying in combat or from old age. As such, he is unique among Grox. Many females admire him but he prefers to be on the front lines of combat, rather than relaxing in The core worlds.

What most Grox do not know until later is that he is mentally unstable, Dangerously unstable. The Crystal Eyes DNA in him constantly pains him and is damaging his brain because it is unstable. Combine that and the stress of being the only Grox left to remember the Great war, coupled with the fact that you know all your friends are dead, would drive a lesser Grox insane. Even so, he suffers from flashbacks and hallucinations, one time even assaulting Veara because he thought she was an enemy. This is one of the reasons Veara dislikes him.

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Not much is known about his childhood, and he refuses to talk about it. He prefers to talk about his time during the Great War. Despite being mildly insane, Agriath keeps him around for several reasons. He is arguably the best admiral in the fleet, A master tactician, and is very skilled in ground combat as well. Agriath does not trust him, so he has Veara check up on him.

He is loved by his crew who see him as a father figure. They only want the best for him. Talus is fiercely loyal towards his crew. In fact, he sees them as his best and only friends.

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Short chapter I know. The next will detail The formation of the Crystal Eyes alliance, an alliance of all the crystal eyes allies.


	9. The CEA

Well here is the new chapter.

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The Crystal Eyes Alliance, or the CEA for short, is the largest empire in the arm of the galaxy that the crystal eyes inhabit. It is technically not one empire, but a collection of around sixty empires, with the Crystal Eyes being the most prominent. The following chapter will be in time-in format.

50,000 years before the fall of Thar: The crystal eyes unite their sixty something allies under one banner. Relationships start out rocky but with the help of diplomats in the alliance, a treaty is written. It states that the crystal eyes are the head race, that all empires will help each other in times of war, and absolutely no bards are allowed in the CEA.

40,000 years before the fall of Thar: Ecologists begin a massive project to terra form every world owned by alliance member to T3. This project will take several thousand years, but will leave the alliance prosperous.

Around 37,000 years before the fall of Thar: An alliance fleet is patrolling near the center of the galaxy when an unknown ship races towards the core. It is Veara. The ship is hit by a nearby meteor and crashes on a grox planet. The fleet preps to go and rescue her, but the chance of discovery by the grox is too high. They leave Veara to her fate.

25,000 years before the fall of Thar: The Worship pact is formed. Shamans and Zealots now both worship freely. The two archetypes become strong allies.

10,000 years before the fall of Thar. The Grox empire begins to fragment. The crystal Eyes are over joyed.

5,000 years before the fall of Thar. The CEA prepares two major projects. The first is classified until a date around 2,000 years into the future. The second is a project the scientist races came up with. They plan to map every wormhole in The CEA's galactic arm and have a large orbital military base guarding each end. While it is expensive, the project begins immediately and goes smoothly.

3,000 years before the fall of Thar: The CEA begin the first project. It is to be the largest construction project undertaken in their history. They plan to build an artificial world that will be located in Noria, the crystal eyes home system. The project continues at a steady pace, with every one pitching in.

2,000 years before fall of Thar: The joint fleet act is formed. Every empire must donate military ships to create a central fleet. The massive fleet is dubbed the fleet of unity by the CEA.

1,000 years before the fall of Thar: The planet is finished. It quickly becomes the center of the Alliance. It is dubbed unity station because all sixty empires pitched in to build it. Containing multiple weapon systems on it, it is also the most heavily defended space station in CEA history. The crystal eyes begin their next major construction project, a massive warship dubbed the Hammer of Spode.

500 years before the fall of Thar: The Grox fragment even further. The CEA is beyond joy.

Unknown years before fall of Thar: Amy, of Grox and Kisses fame, begins to unify the Grox. The CEA preps several assassination teams. One operative even makes it onto Kirk's ship and takes a shot at her before being forced to abort.

2 months before the Fall of Thar: The CEA intercepts transmissions from the Tharians. They spend several weeks trying to decode it before giving up.

1 month before the fall of Thar: Massive spikes of dark energy are detected from the center of the galaxy. The Kami empire, a CEA empire located right next to the center of the galaxy, launch a fleet of twenty ships to investigate. Only one ship comes back heavily damaged with only one marine left alive onboard who has been driven insane.

Fall of Thar: The transmission coming from the Tharian empire promptly stops. The CEA hears rumors of Grox invasion throughout the galaxy. Number of Uber turrets on colony planets goes up from one to three. A strategy is formed for invading an arm of the galaxy. The crystal eyes will launch a fleet in to penetrate defenses. Then the main CEA fleet will come in.

Several weeks after the fall of Thar: The galaxy wide broadcast is heard by the CEA. They begin the invasion.

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Well that is the history of the CEA. Don't forget to review or PM me if you have questions.


	10. The Hammer of Spode

Welcome back. This chapter will be all about the space ship, the Hammer of Spode.

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The idea to create a flagship for the fleet of unity was thought up of roughly 1,000 years before the fall of Thar. The ship was to be at least a mile long and be staffed by a member of every race in the CEA. Some were along the line however, the scale of the project became much larger than intended.

Originally, the ship was to be only one mile long. Some were along the line, its size was cranked up to an insane ten miles. It soars to an upward length of one mile. As the project became bigger, the crystal eyes also added many different weapons, some of them experimental.

The main laser on the ship is the largest directed energy weapon the CEA has ever created. inside the cavity were the laser is projected is a massive sphere. This sphere projects the energy from the cannon in a one hundred an eighty degree radius. A laser that size can carve continents and vaporize oceans.

The second main gun on board is a powerful magnetohydrodynamics cannon. This massive weapon shoots white hot metal in a stream at a fraction of the speed of light. This is the first time the crystal eyes have implemented a weapon like this.

The massive spinal gun mounted on top of the ship is a magnetic accelerator cannon. It is quad barreled and can fire each turret individually or all four of them at once. Each round is a hybrid super solid/ depleted uranium round. Each round is the size of the Comet Wasp starship. The kinetic force of such a detonation would cause unprecedented destruction.

Mounted underneath the ship are six quad barreled nuclear chainguns. Each cannon fires a nuclear warhead the size of the Tharak at high velocity. The rounds are heavily armored so they can penetrate through planetary atmospheres, but the Grox don't even have atmospheres, meaning all kinetic bombardment is at full power.

Mounted on the side of the ship is four beam cannons, two on each side. Able to fire anywhere, except to the right or the left, means that any ship trying to flank The Hammer will be hit dead on. The cannons have two barrels each and fire pulses of energy, not continuous beams.

Besides all these main weapons, the ship is bristling with every type of turret, from uber turrets mounted to the ships surface, to the new pyro turrets, as well as smaller magnetic accelerator cannons. The ship has a large hangar that is set on the bottom of the ship. It can hold the entire fleet of Harmonious Cleansing.

The ship also has missile launchers that fire missiles, bombs, and gas canister shells containing nerve gas.

A ship this large requires a massive crew. Every race in the CEA has donated manpower to the ship. The ship contains more crew members than most empires have in their entire navies. The only way to support a crew this size is to be self sustaining. The ship contains everything from farms to factories, as well as habitats for all the different races. Food is all grown their and if the farms are destroyed, there is enough military rations to last a crew for millennia. The factories run on resources that the ship has. If it runs low, they strip mine a nearby world for resources.

The Hammer has a two secrets onboard. The first is an experimental shield cracker. If an empire throws up a planetary shield, bombardment from range is impossible. A ship would have to fly to the surface, being heavily fired on. Well, the Hammer has a shield cracker. Shields are taken out from range, kinetic bombardment goes on down.

The second is even more dangerous. The crystal eyes only had nine dark matter missiles capable of collapsing stars. These nine missiles were spread out through their galactic arm. The CEA built a tenth missile and had it stored on board the hammer. The shear power of said missile is a deterrent to almost every empire.

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Another chapter. The information chapters are now over. Expect a story one soon. Now, remember, I would love to see reviews. Anyone, please!


	11. Showdown

Welcome back. I finally got this story chapter out.

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Talus's fleet hung in orbit around a small grox radar station. It had been a rough couple weeks for the fleet. They had been forced to abandoned a large amount of their bases just to escape alive.

Talus sighed. Looks like its time to check in on Paxas, he thought. Paxas was currently on the other side of the planet.

"Paxas, status report" "They're everywhere!". Talus did a double take as he heard the sounds of explosions coming over the comms. "Paxas, what's going on" he asked. "The Crystal Eyes, they came out of nowhere, we need back up!"

Talus's fleet engaged its engines and started speeding towards Paxas's flagship. "Paxas stay in contact with us, were almost there". Talus could just barely make out the battle from were his ships currently were.

"Negative! Hull breach, reactors flaring! We can't lock down the reactor, I'm losing her". Talus was about to respond when a bright flash light up the vacuum. When the light cleared, Paxas's vessel had exploded into five separate chunks.

He's gone, Talus thought, just like that he's gone. "Bridge crew, get us out of here, we need to plan a counter offensive". Talus watched the crystal eyes begin to bombard the planet. Your death will not be in vain Paxas, you shall be avenged.

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Marius was relaxing in his command chair. The small grox outpost on the planet had been destroyed and as an added bonus, Paxas and his ship had been obliterated. He was just about to plan the next move in the operation when the comms screen flickered to life.

Marius looked down at the screen and into the face of his least favorite grox. "Talus, what do you want". "Vengeance" Talus hissed "You killed Paxas". "I am proud of that, besides, my fleet could destroy yours in ship to ship combat" Marius replied cooly. "I did not come here to ask for a space battle. We shall have a duel, one on one, hand to hand combat" Talus growled.

"Very well Talus, send me the coordinates and we will duel, and I will finally seal your doom" Marius stated. "We will see" Talus said.

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The planet D3856. A barren wasteland. T0, no atmosphere, and barely any solid land above the vast lava oceans. But it was about to bear witness to a duel that would go down in history.

Marius was prepared. Full armor and weapons. He was mentally preparing himself for the ordeal to come. He would soon end Talus. First Talus, then the entire Grox, Marius thought. Khamul entered the room "Sir, are you ready?" Marius nodded "Indeed I am, are some of the crew going to watch this battle". "Yes sir" Khamul replied.

Marius and Khamul hurried to the teleporters. One word was spoken clearly, "Descend".

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"Sir, I know you are a great tactician and admiral, but how can you possibly beat a crystal eyes in hand to hand combat". Talus had been listening to all his soldiers tell him what his chances of living were and he was tired of it.

Talus turned around and said "I have several weapons I can use and you forget one thing, I have their DNA, I was meant to fight hand to hand". Talus slipped a large metal claw over his right arm.

"Sir, what is that?" "It is an Archon gauntlet, sort of like the ones Veara uses. If I hit Marius with this, he will be very lucky to survive.". The Grox crew member nodded, but still looked perplexed. "Sir, were is your second weapon?" the crew member gasped as Talus's robotic left arm morphed into a dark energy cannon. "Any other questions soldier?" Talus said.

"No sir." "Good, now, Descend!"

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Marius strode forward across the cracked landscape. The duel was to take place on top of a plateau sticking up from a mountain. A beam of light came down and there stood Talus. "Well Talus, this is were it ends, one of us is not leaving here alive" Marius said calmly. "This ends now" Talus stated. "Agreed" Marius said. Marius leapt forward, white matter swords extended from his arms.

Talus brought his archon claw up and fired at Marius. Marius deflected it .

On and on the battle raged with no end in site. Each attack was blocked and countered.

Talus suddenly gained the upper hand. He brought his claw done and Marius brought his blades up in a cross block. The claw was getting closer and closer to Marius's head. He had to think fast.

Marius suddenly whipped his left arm blade forward, sinking it deep into the arm cannon. The white matter melted the power core for the dark energy.

Talus looked down at his arm cannon curiously. The cannon was beeping rapidly and was heating up. Talus's shoulders slumped and he sighed wearily.

"Well Marius, it appears you've one. Mark my words though, death will not stop me from getting you, mark my words!" He roared.

Marius hit the ground as the cannon exploded. When the dust cleared, it revealed Talus. His left arm was completely gone and his claw on his right arm was welded to him. He was horribly burnt.

Marius sighed "Its over". He looked up as the inheritor flew over head, "Ascend!"

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Marius was on talking to the core worlds from his ship "Begin phase two of operation, hit them in the underbelly" "Yes sir, the Grox won't now what hit them".

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Finally finished this chapter. Now I need to talk about something. Reviews, as always, are welcome and I would love to see some new people read and review. Also, I am holding my first contest. Please draw the Hammer of Spode and send it to .. I will select one persons drawing as the winners. Also, I welcome anyone to draw for this story, characters, scenes, ships, anything. Feel free to send me any questions.


	12. Observance

Welcome back. This chapter will be during certain events on Thar, such as Roku and Co. being teleported and Maruck being imprisoned. It will culminate as the fleets from chapter 33 arrive. Then the next chapter will involve the crystal eyes involvement in the battle.

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The stealth ship hung in orbit, cloak activated of course. Several hours ago, Marius had joined the stealth ships crew for their recon mission. They were hanging in Thar's orbit. Observing and taking note of defenses and also taking note of the high energy emissions coming from the planets surface.

"Sir, we have a ship coming out of Hyperspace above Thar." one of the Verlocken crew members stated.

Marius nodded in acknowledgment "Right, bring it up on screen."

On the screen they could see a rather small disc shaped ship heading towards the surface of Thar.

"We'll all be, if I'm not mistaken, that's Steve's ship, I wonder what he is doing outside of the galactic core." Marius muttered to himself.

Already Grox ships were closing in around it. Marius watched as Steve fired a strange laser at one of the ships. He gasped as ice formed around the ships cannon.

The ship continued flying through a gauntlet of Grox ships. As the ship entered Thar's atmosphere, the Verlocken increased power to their viewing scopes.

(Viewing Scopes on stealth ships are incredibly powerful. They can view an object all the way from orbit and be able to make out individual features on whatever they are viewing)

They watched as several more Grox ships exploded in high orbit. The crew cheered on the mysterious crew of Steve's ship, even placing bets on how long they would survive.

The ship suddenly slowed down like crazy, and then to the surprise of the crew in orbit, went spiraling down.

"Increase power on the scopes, I can barely make out several figures jettisoning from the ship" Marius barked.

Power was increased. He watched as the figures made their way into the city. Then they lost sight.

Marius sighed. They had just lost sight. One of the crewmembers yawned. He suddenly realized that they had been up ever since they got here, around fifteen hours.

"Alright men, take a quick break. We all need rest. Wake me when something big happens.

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"Sir, you might want to see this!" one of the Verlocken shouted, out of breath. "What is it?" Marius asked.

"Massive spike in dark energy from planets surface, we have scopes on the city."

Marius dashed over to the bridge and looked down through the observation port down to the city. What he saw amazed him. It was a large pillar that seemed to be breaking down. He could just barely make out two figures falling in what appeared to be slow motion, while several other were battling dronox above.

"What the... Why are the falling in slow motion!" Marius shouted. The crew all shook their heads "I have no idea" one of them responded. Marius turned back to observing.

Several minutes later, the whole pillar detonated. They did not even need the scopes, the flash could be seen from orbit.

"By Spode, I hope they were not caught in the blast" Marius said softly.

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Several more minutes passed. As Marius and CO. began to relax, another event happened.

"Sir, that huge tower down their just light up like a firework, mostly around the top"

"Crew man, what's happening down there?"

"Not sure, registering huge amounts of energy, wait, several figures are standing around the beam. By spode, several of them are being lifted in the air"

Marius looked with disbelief from the bridge as onscreen, several figures were lifted up into the air, towards the beam of light.

"By spode, their going through that portal, but were does it lead?" Marius asked himself.

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Several hours passed by. No new anomalies were detected. The crew turned to monitoring the nearby moon which had a prison built on it. It was a rather boring sight. Nothing but snow and metal. But then, an anomaly appeared.

"Sir, we have signs of electrical disturbance coming from that prison complex"a Verlocken stated. Marius nodded "Enhance video". "Sir, the electric anomaly is heading towards that courtyard" "Bring the optics up on the courtyard then." Marius replied.

Looking through the scopes, he could see a figure standing there, surrounded by dronox and a strange catlike creature that had Grox implants.

"Identify that cat thing quickly." Marius ordered. "Sir, data shows that particular creature is called Veara.". Marius looked down at the creature "Save that image, we will hunt her down.".

He watched as a figure appeared alongside the creature that was kneeling. Said creature began deflecting the energy shots.

"Identify all creatures down there that are not Grox" Marius ordered. "Sir, data shows that those creatures are Roku of the Tharian empire, Maruck of the Scorpank empire, Arcadia of the Chimera empire, and Harko of the Tharian empire".

Marius nodded "You know, we could go down there and help them." one of the crewmembers stated. Marius shook his head "Negative, we can't compromise are position. If we do, we will be shot down for sure. Observance is all we do for now."

"Sir, massive amounts of hyperspace tunnels detected."

A massive fleet arrived in orbit around Thar. "Hack into their comms, I want to here what they say." Marius ordered. As he heard all the empire names listed, he turned to the crew, grinning wildly.

"Better add Crystal Eyes Alliance to that list, contact the fleet of unity, tell them to get ready, we got a war to wage."

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This chapter is now finished. I am waiting for njkillen to write the first chapter concerning the battle. Around an hour into the battle, the Fleet of Unity will arrive. This does not mean I will take a break from writing this story.

I plan to have a chapter detailing the experiments conducted on Omega-89 and the status of the Hammer of Spode. If you have any comments, questions, concerns, or just want to send me a message, review or PM. I will be much obliged and will answer almost immediately.

Till next time

Patriot868


	13. Arrival

A quick chapter to show the assembling of the fleet of Unity and their arrival at Thar. Note: The next chapter will involve the battle of Thar. I can not update until njkilleen updates so be patient. I will have several chapters to fill in some gaps and maybe a short story.

As stated before, the CEA arrives one hour into the battle of Thar. This gave them time to muster every last one of the ships they could.

XXX

Marius had returned to the base. He said farewell to the crew of the stealth ship and was now checking up on his ship an the status of The Hammer of Spode.

"One week, we really have to wait a week before we get our hands on the ship? Oh well, just hurry up.

Marius sighed irritably. The ship was not going to be present at the coming battle.

The thought of the battle made him grin. Finally, the CEA would end the Grox. They would finally be able to go head to head with them. The fact that the other races that were currently battling over Thar was an added bonus.

"All units, launch into orbit, we are going to meet up with the Fleet of Unity." Marius ordered.

XXX

He waited on the bridge of the Inheritor. They better not be late, he thought. "Commander, hyperspace tunnels detected." Khamul stated. Marius grinned.

The sight of the fleet almost brought a tear to Marius's non-crystal eyes. Thousands and thousands of ships hang in orbit. Every make, every design. From spheres with metal tentacles protruding from the back, to ships shaped like arachnids, to sleek aerodynamic ships.

At the head were the other Inheritor class ships. Twelve in all, one for every board member. The crystal eyes would lead the fleet.

"Fleet, assemble in your designated positions" Marius ordered. The fleet smoothly slid into position with the fleet of unity.

Marius turned and addressed the fleet "Men, we came out here at first believing that the was only a simple Grox invasion. Through intercepted transmissions and Reconnaissance, we know now that much more is at stake than just this arm of the galaxy."

"What we have learned is that not only is this galaxy threatened, our entire universe is threatened, heck, all the universes are threatened. What we do here will affect the entire fate of pretty much everything in existence."

"We go to Thar to aid the other alliance of alien races. We will help them. We will fight alongside them and we will bring down the thunder on the Grox. Now ARE YOU WITH ME?"

The entire fleet roared in response. Marius smiled "That's what I thought, now all units, full ahead, time to initiate operation Freebird."

The fleet warped towards Thar.

XXX

*Onboard one of the Starlen vessels*

"Capitan, we have multiple hyperspace tunnels detected." The Capitan looked up alarmed. "Are they Grox?" He asked nervously. "No sir, they are unknown."

Suddenly a fleet warped into the system. The capitan gasped. It was massive and had every type of ship conceivable. The sheer size of some of them was amazing. "Find out if they are friendly" He ordered.

XXX

"Now then" Marius said "We shall bring death."


	14. Awakening

Well here is the next chapter. For consistency's sake, it take place several hours after Roku and Co. are teleported, but before Maruck escapes.

XXX

Pain, absolute pain. The only thing he could feel was pain. There was nothing but darkness in his vision. Then, in a flash, their was his life.

**Flash**

There he was, awaiting the test results to become an admiral. The officer on duty beckoned him to enter the office. "congratulations, you have passed, welcome to the admiralty."

**Flash**

"Sir, we have orders to fire on the vessel." He stared at the vessel that was currently searching for the item they requested. "Do it."

**Flash**

The memories were not breaking down like a certain Scorpank's. No, they were growing stronger, fueling his will.

**Flash**

"Are you willing to accept the mark of the Fist of Shadow." He nodded "I am.". He roared as the markings he was born with were burned off and replaced with the mark of the fist of shadow.

**Flash**

He walked through the streets on the surface of the Grox's home planet. He suddenly fell to the ground screaming as he felt something trying to extract the memories from his head. It only got one, then he blacked out.

**Flash**

"All power to engines, we have to catch that ship!" They were chasing a ship that was heading for the galactic core. He glanced down at the screen and noted that it was registered to one Veara Eveler of the Artlen empire. He would never admit it, but she was an exceptional pilot.

"She's gonna make it!". Of course, Veara did not. An asteroid collided with her ship sending her crashing to the surface of the planet. He led the strike team down to the surface, just in time to see a half dead Artlen attempt to get out of her cockpit.

"Orders command?" "Retrieve the body" "Yes command."

**Flash**

"You are all weak, spineless fools, yes I am talking to you Kirk, and you to Vature". He curled his lip in disgust at the pathetic array of emperors around him. "I fought in the great war! I fought under a real emperor! You all make me sick!". He turned his back on them and stormed out.

**Flash**

"Sir, the empire is one again!" He grinned. Maybe his empire was not dead after all.

**Flash**

He could feel the strength rushing back to him. He would not die. Not here at least.

With a gasp, Talus's eyes snapped open.

XXX

He was lying on an operating table. He looked down at his left arm and was surprised to see a new, upgraded robotic arm. "Ah, you are awake." a voice said.

He looked at a nearby screen which had Veara's face on it. "Veara, how did I get here, what happened to me?". "Well, you were dueling Marius and he basically killed you." Veara replied.

Talus nodded slowly. "Then how are you alive." "You can thank me for that. I had to almost beg the Grand Master to save you. I also pulled some strings and got you several upgrades. Your welcome." Veara stated.

Talus was bewildered "Why? Were not exactly best friends." Veara looked down at him "Well we need every admiral we can get in this fight. Also, you have experience fighting the Crystal Eyes. You did fight in the great war.".

"What sort of upgrades did I get?" He queried. "Well, we gave you a new arm of course and reinforced everything in your body. Your arm cannon is now four times more powerful and your strength, speed, and agility have been boosted up 200%" She said.

"Why are do I have all these upgrades?" He asked suspiciously. "Well..." Veara said "The grand master is sending you on a suicide mission. He want's you to locate the home arm of the Crystal Eyes so a counter attack can be formulated." She said. "Unless of course you remember were it is." She added.

"I can't. I can remember everything except for that." He cried. Veara shook her head "Oh well. Head down to the hangar, we need you out there immediately."

XXX

There it was, his flagship. He quickly stepped on board and headed to the bridge. "Sir, I thought you were dead, we all did!" He grinned as his bridge crew ran up to him. "Well, it will take a lot more than a dark energy explosion to kill me!". Before the crew could ask him anymore questions he raised his hand up.

"Enough talk, we have a mission to do!".

XXX

The ship left the orbital structure behind, setting a course for the nearest wormhole. I hope you are ready Marius, Talus thought, I am coming fo you.

XXX

Well, as always, review and ask me any questions you want.


	15. Omega89

Well this is a short chapter that I wrote up just to stay actively writing while I wait for The Tale of Tesseract to be updated. I can't write anything new until it is updated. This chapter will cover the military instillation known as Omega-89

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Omega-89 is an inhospitable place. Barely T1, frozen solid, and the few indigenous creatures are incredibly hostile. But in the world of clasfied operations and highly secretive experiments, these are great traits for a planet to have.

For a long time, a single blue star was the edge of the galactic arm the crystal eyes lived in. The star was named Galaxies End and quickly became a vacation hotspot as well as playing host to several military installations tasked with monitoring for any extra galactic threats.

With the invention of the tri-matter drive however, ships could now reach the last three stars that had been beyond their reach for so long. Each star had several planets, all with rare types of spice on them. Most were converted into naval bases and monitoring outposts. The one on the farthest star out on the very edge of the gravity well became Omega-89.

There are labs and complexes all over the planet. The huge amount of mountain ranges that cover 75 percent of the planet allow for facilities to be built inside mountains after they are hollowed out. The main complex is Alpha base.

During the great war, grox prisoners were kept on Sellion. After Omega-89 was built, all grox prisoners were shifted there. Grox prisoners were objected to the most hideous experiments in crystal eyes history. Their implants were usually forcibly ripped out and every new weapon system was tested on them. Their DNA was used in the creation of the Drelock and Verlocken which gave them incredible mental capacity and incredible cruelty and ruthlessness on the battle field.

Besides genetic experiments, almost every weapon system is built and tested there. Famous experiments will now be listed below along with current projects.

Singularity Missiles: The infamous star collapsing missiles were built here and were tested on a nearby star.

Ferro-Uranite rounds: The current ballistic used in all auto-cannons. It took around five years to develop. These bullets are fired incredibly fast and can shred through most shields.

Cyclotaurite Payloads: These advanced missiles were specifically created to maximize the shockwave and explosive radius of them.

The CE 4924- Archon Pulse Cannon: A few years before A Little Fight? For Regimight?, exploration ships were sent to map out to map the galaxy. One of the areas they were the most curious about was the Crystal Eyes arm because they had no records on it, do to the cyber attack that erased their memory of it.

One of the Grox ships had a cleansing ray on it, 1 of 4 in the galaxy (A/N I know there are only three of them. But their was a fourth one that fell into the Crystal Eyes hands. Look, just go with it.) Arriving at the nearby planet of Hybridcas, to begin recon of the planet.

Now, Hybridcas is only one parsec away from the crystal eyes home world, so their navy freaked out and shot every ship down except for the ship with the ray on board it. Commandos quickly boarded the ship and seized the ship intact.

After years of experimenting, the Archon pulse cannon, A.K.A. the Angry ray, was the product. Highly destructive, it acted like the mega pulse. A current project is to adapt Archon energy into the barbette cannons.

Archon Energy: Most races would not even consider using Archon energy. The Crystal Eyes, however, will use any technologies they can get their hands on to defeat the Grox. They are very carful with it though. They don't want to end up like the Grox. They aren't as skilled as the Grox with it, but they are getting better with it.

Brain code: The computer virus used to delete themselves from the Grox memory banks was created here.

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Now for the two most classified WMD's in the CEA's arsenal. The most experimental yet.

ISSS-7863 Quantum Accelerator Cannon: This high powered cannon is being designed to launch a massive high explosive round the size of a CEA skyscraper any were in the galaxy. It is still several years away. But when its done, any were in the galaxy is a target.

CE-9214 Cataclysm Projector: This cannon is designed to act like the gravitation wave, but can be projected halfway around the galaxy. While its range is shorter then the Quantum accelerator cannon, its damage output is far higher. Its high energy cost however, means it will be seldomly used once it is created.

XXX

Well another quick chapter finished. Review if you can and take the poll also.


	16. The battle for Thar part 1

Welcome back. This is the first chapter that details the battle of Thar not only in this story, but in this collab. I have been given njkilleen's blessing to write this.

XXX

The fleet of Unity flung itself into the battle for Thar with gusto. "Alright, lets try our MAC cannons" Marius said. The Inheritor fired a slug and he watched, amazed, as it tore threw three grox ships before exploding on the fourth one.

"Good hit, good hit. Lets do that again."

As the fleet battled the Grox above Thar, Marius became aware that heavy fire was coming from the planet itself. He looked at the scopes to confirm and lo and behold, big guns on the surface of the planet were firing on them.

"Take out those guns!" Marius ordered. "Negative sir, we can't fire on them."

"Why not?" "The Aeron fleet says that there are civilians still down their."

Marius swore. If we could only take out those guns. "Khamul, I need you to lead an evac."

XXX

The shuttles left the ships, speeding down towards the capital city on Thar. "Khamul, be advised, were drawing some of the grox ships out space into the airspace above the capital. It might get a little hot on the way down."

Khamul nodded "Roger that, were coming in fast." The shuttles entered the atmosphere, quickly tearing through a bank of clouds, and into the chaos below.

The shuttles weaved through the mass of ships battling it out for control of Thar's air space. Khamul glanced out the window and watched as several of the shuttles exploded from the concentrated AA coming from the city.

The shuttles reached the area designated as the landing site and touched down. Khamul jumped out of the shuttle and began to run for cover. Heavy fire was already poring in on his position. he glanced up and watched the Inheritor fly over head.

XXX

"Sir, we have visual on a massive tower in front of us". Marius nodded "That's the Tharians main control tower and from the looks of it, it has several guns built around its upper floor. Fire a MAC round!"

"Sir, that might not be advisable. Firing an explosive round at a building with such high levels of dark energy could cause a catastrophic explosion." "I don't care, fire!"

The round streaked forward and impacted the main control tower's top floor, heavily damaging it and causing a massive dark energy explosion. Power dampeners in the tower screeched as they struggled to contain the explosion.

The dampeners just barely managed to contain the explosion. Even so, the explosion to out all the nearby AA guns.

"There's some visible damage on the tower, nice work!" Marius shouted.

XXX

Khamul was busy escorting civilians to the transports. It was going fairly well, although they were still taking heavy fire from artillery. An explosion temporarily blinded him as the main control tower was hit. Khamul rolled his eyes. Marius is not know for his subtlety, he thought.

"Sir, what is the plan once we get the civilians out of here?" he queried. "We have several dreadnoughts standing by to get them to Sellion and out of harms way." Marius responded from over the comms. "Good sir, just checking."

XXX

Well the first chapter of the battle for Thar is finished. I hope that anyone who reads it finds it satisfactory.


	17. The battle for Thar part 2

Welcome to the next chapter of The storm.

XXX

The evacuation of Thar's capitol was going good, over 450,000 Tharians had been evacuated. However, intense fighting was breaking out around the landing site, so orders were given to pull out.

"Khamul, we need to go, now!" A nearby Drelock shouted. "I now, all units fall back!". Khamul roared out the last bit. The troops began to fall back towards the shuttles, running for their lives.

Khamul entered a nearby shuttle. "Pilot, we need to get out of here, now!". The pilot nodded "Roger that, dust off , five seconds." The shuttle lifted off the ground and began the flight over the rooftops.

Khamul's luck, however, ran out. A grox AA emplacement fired on the shuttle and took out its rear thrusters. "Everyone, hold on!". The shuttle started to destabilize and then it hit the ground and everything in Khamul's vision went black.

XXX

Khamul's vision was fading in and out. From a great distance, he could hear Marius calling. He realized that Marius was trying to say something over his comlink, but he could barely make it out. His med pack built into his armor finally snapped on and cleared his head. "Khamul, get up! We can see them from up here, thousands of them, your gonna have to run for it."

Khamul managed to stand up and quickly blasted a hole in the wall of the shuttle. Stumbling into the light, he saw that the battlefield was absolute chaos. Artillery was raining down on the city and CEA ships were locked in a naval battle.

He began to run and as he did, Dronox soldiers began firing at him. Each hit caused his shields to flare up and the shield bar on his HUD began to drain. "Sir, what is going to evacuate me?" Khamul asked. "We have peeled a light runner class frigate from the battle, your gonna have to hitch a ride on it".

Khamul kept running, dodging enemy fire and having to slide across the wreck of a Grox tank. The next tank he encountered, however, was still active.

Khamul slid across the tanks surface, but the turret rotated to track him. However, fortune struck. A CEA Fighter/Bomber flew overhead and took out the tank with a high powered missile.

Khamul saw the light runner fly over head, auto cannons firing on all hostiles nearby.

"Khamul, we don't have time to land. Were going to have to lower the ramp and your just gonna have to jump for it!" The capitan shouted.

Khamul gritted his teeth and leaped for the ramp. He just barely managed to catch it. "Commander, Khamul is secure, I repeat, Khamul is secure, returning to battle."

XXX

Marius was glad that Khamul was safe. It was one less thing he had to worry about. However, the Grox were still holding on to the planet with a passion.

"Sir, their goes a Grox flagship, we believe it might be Veara's." "Fire on it" "Sir, at the angle the MAC round comes in, it will hit the tower!" "I don't care! Fire!"

The round streaked forward. However, it was not Veara's ship. "Everyone, brace for impact!" Marius shouted. The round hit the tower. This time, several of the power dampeners on the tower exploded, leaving dark energy leaks all through out the upper floor.

"Sir, those dark energy leaks have caused time anomalies all through out the upper floor of the tower.". Marius nodded "Well, were not going up there. I feel sorry for anyone who does." Marius turned to the crew "We need a place were we can ambush a large amount of grox ships without destroying the entire city."

"Sir, space port one might be the place to do it." "Alright, set a course for space port one."

XXX

Space port one was the place were the Tharian fleet had been lured to during the invasion of Thar. It was a bloody battle that had resulted in the area surrounding the space port becoming a grave yard of Tharian ships.

Marius stared at this grave yard as the Grox were chasing him there. "How about we add some Grox ships to this graveyard." He said. The crew roared their approval. "Fire a white matter bomb!" Marius shouted "Yes sir!"

White matter bombs are a deadly weapon in the CEA's arsenal. When fired, they will suck in matter and antimatter into a compressed ball before releasing it. The resulting explosion is incredibly massive.

The bomb streaked forward and landed in the middle of the grave yard. The Inheritor quickly flew over it, but the Grox ships were not so lucky. They flew right into the path of the oncoming explosion.

Marius laughed. "The Grox are dumber than a sack of hammers." "Sir, Admiral Naran want's to talk to you" "Alright, bring him onscreen."

Naran's face appeared on screen, along with another creatures. Marius gasped.

XXX

Cliffhanger FTW. Since I have not written a disclaimer in a while, here it goes.

I do not own spore. Maxis and EA do. I asked for permission to join this collab and I have permission to write this story. Cyclotaurite payloads and ferro-uranite rounds are from the game Sins of a Solar Empire which is owned by Stardock and Ironclad gaming.

If you want to see all the exotic weapons I keep talking about (Alpha Ion cannon, Exotic matter bombs, deflation bomb etc.) They are all part of the Platinum spore mod which I don't own.

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, review or PM me.


	18. The battle for Thar part 3

Lets be frank. I seriously do not enjoy being the only person that has a story active in the spore archive. Therefore I have a few words to say before we continue the battle of Thar. I encourage all readers who are reading this, wether they are TTOT or not, to write their own Spore story. Please, sometimes I feel like the spore archive is a graveyard filled with half finished stories and ideas. Also, some reviews would not hurt. That's all for now.

XXX

As the battle for Thar drew on, ground forces were now being deployed into the city. If the Grox were worried before about the new invaders, they were frantic now. All across Thar, CEA ground forces were securing landing sites for ships. The CEA were slowly tearing the city from the Grox occupiers.

However, the Grox were not out of the fight. One of their bomber was given a special mission. Take out the main landing site in the city with a large psionic bomb. When the soldiers were all knocked out, the Grox could swoop in and take them prisoner.

However, the CEA would not take this lying down.

XXX

"Pilot, take out that bomber! If they drop that psi bomb, our invasion is seriously going to be jeopardized!"

The crystal eyes pilot nodded. "Roger that" he said. He beckoned for his wing man to fly over.

"You heard him, we have a bomber to shoot down"

The jets streaked forward through the air. "In ten seconds, were going to be up to our necks in AA, I hope your ready" the pilot said. His wing man nodded "Lets due this"

The pilot was right. AA was flying in all directions. It did not help that enemy fighters were following them also.

The pilot pressed the fire button on his control panel. Several missiles spiraled from his aircraft. Unfortunately, the missed and impacted the ground or surrounding buildings.

His wing man was having much worse luck however. He had already taken several severe hits and was losing altitude fast.

"Hey man, I'm not gonna make it! I'm losing altitude" "Try! You have to try!". Before his wing man could respond however, a particularly large turret on the ground rotated and fired.

Needless to say, the results were catastrophic. The Jet was little more than a burning hulk as it streaked forward and impacted the ground. The pilot just stared ahead. Just another life that the Grox had stolen. Another death to be avenged.

XXX

Through out all this, the enemy bomber was swiftly approaching the landing zone. The pilot realized that he did not have time for another shot, so he went for a rather risky course of action.

He hit the afterburners and flew over the ship and pulled a u-turn, flying at it while being slightly above and to the right. As the ships neared each other, he grabbed the pulse shotgun he had bolted under his seat, along with two pulse pistols.

As the ships almost collided, he acted. He quickly smashed his window shield and jumped at the enemy ship.

He brought his shotgun forward and fired several rounds into the window shield before smashing through.

Before the Grox pilot could even react, his throat was slashed open. The pilot quickly looked around. The bomber seemed bigger inside the cockpit. He could hear what sounded like several Dronox running for the door.

The second one ran in, it was killed. The pilot quickly set the vessel on autopilot and ran into the bomb bay. The few Dronox inside stared at him with disbelief. Before they could react, he had already killed one and hurled himself at the others.

Before the last one even hit the floor, he had dashed back to the cockpit. He realized that instead of just crashing the bomber, he should turn its ordnance against the Grox. However, the bomb would have to be armed manually.

He stared at the console and began to push buttons. He hit one and heard the sounds of the bomb bay doors opening. Before he could close them, a stray round hit them, wedging them open. That meant he would have to arm the bomb completely exposed.

He quickly locked the bombers course in to the center of the Grox's lines and then dashed for the bomb bay. Already he could hear rounds impacting the bomber's hull.

He jumped down and landed on the bomb. He quickly tore the control panel off and began arming the bomb. Even as he worked he could think of nothing more than the satisfaction of dropping this on the Grox.

He jumped back up to the catwalk and ran into the cockpit. He finally reached his tarhet area and released the bomb.

He swerved and started trying to get out of the blast radius. The bomb, however, had already exploded. "No, if I fall unconscious, I'll crash!" He shouted to himself. He still did not outrun the bomb and blacked out.

XXX

He woke up having no idea were he was. All he could see were the two Grox pulling him out of the wreckage. Dragging him to his imprisonment. He let himself sink back into unconscious, letting himself be taken.

XXX

Well, another chapter done. Feel free to send me any feedback you have.


	19. The Portal

Well no one asked for it, but I am not going to stop writing this story. I am pleased that I have managed to write twenty chapters. Lets hope that I can keep going.

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*Several hours before the battle of Thar*

Admiral Naran was having a good day. So far, they had managed to raid four separate Grox installations. Now they were busy raiding a fifth one. It was a remote research outpost, the only structure on the planet being the labs.

Naran turned to the Drelock who had the blasting charges "You, blast the door.". The Drelock nodded and planted the explosives on the door. This was the last section of the labs that they nodded to enter. Needless to say, the Grox were not to keen on letting them in.

The charges detonated and the team burst in, guns blazing. The Grox scientists inside did not last long against the amount of fire streaming in and pretty soon, they lay dead.

Naran was sifting through the carnage when he noticed something resting on a plinth near the center of the room. It looked like a sphere that was all black and had no markings on it.

Naran did not want to take chances, so he had the sphere carefully removed via pushing it of the plinth with his gun and rolling it into a storage container. Curious, he thought to himself, we shall examine this on the bridge of the ship.

XXX

The sphere was rolled out of its container on to the main console on the bridge. "Sir, what do you think it is?" one of Naran's crew mates asked. "Well theirs only one way to find out what it is, and that is to examine it." he replied.

He set his hand on it and to his surprise, it lit up. Then, a symbol appeared on its smooth surface. It was written in an unknown language and even the universal translator could not decode it. However, Naran slowly realized what language it was. It was Vorchian.

Finally realizing what language it was, the symbol was easy to decipher. It said "Play".

Naran placed his hand over the symbol and suddenly the sphere flared to life.

Naran gasped. A Vorchian was suddenly standing in front of him. Then the creature began talking and he realized it was just a holographic message.

"If you have found this recording, then you have managed to evolve to the space stage and all our work was not in vain. Now, we must tell you, our creations, of our fate."

XXX

As you well know, we left this galaxy after the fall of our empire. However, we have not told you how we managed to get such advanced technology. During the last years that we were on our home world, we decided to explore it more. During one of our exploratory digs, we discovered a massive structure built into the planets crust.

This structure was a massive library of sorts, buried here to preserve the memories of a long dead race. It was here that we learned how to build planet ships with very little resources. It was here were we learned how to create intelligent life. And it was here were we learned how to travel between universes without using quantum entanglement.

To travel between universes, we had to adapt the staff of life. As you well know, we tried duplicating staffs of life with moderate success. Anyways, we slotted the staffs on to the world ships and developed out method of travel, known as quantum tunneling.

The way it worked was instead of focusing the energy on one atom, we focused it on a ring of atoms instead. Then the energy from a staff of life would be focused to create a tunnel so we could safely traverse through the dark hollow.

It was fool proof. We traveled to thousands of universes, creating life. For we had discovered near the end of our empire that the plague that nearly destroyed us was engineered by the Grox, who had gotten the plans from Agriath.

Our purpose was to create life in other universes to fight Agriath. For his minions are many and exist in every plane of existence. In some universes we would win, our creations defeating Agriath's . In many, however, our creations would be destroyed or corrupted. When this would happen, the race in question would open a portal to the dark hollow, resulting in the death of their universe.

It was on the retreat from one of these universe that we were imprisoned.

As we fled the collapsing universe, we did not notice that a portion of Agriath's conscious followed us. To our knowledge, he was still trapped in the core of the Aeron galaxy. He must have left a tiny shred of his psyche behind in the dark hollow before being trapped.

As we entered the dark space, the tunnel was holding like it usually did. The archon energy was battering away at the life energy like usual. But then something happened. For the slightest second, in the smallest area you could possible imagine, the shield weakened.

Years later we would learn that it was that shred of Agriath's power that weakened the shield and in doing so destroyed itself. However, the damage was done. The shield shattered and the archon rushed in.

The crews onboard however were smart and managed to diver all the life energy used for tunneling into creating a shield against the archon. However, we were now stranded inside the dark hollow without enough energy to warp out.

Time passed and we waited for a way to escape. From the inside of the dark hollow, we could see rifts opening up and closing as paths out of the dark hollow opened. However, every time we tried to fly towards one, it closed.

One of our head admirals decided it would be for the best if we signaled our creations. However, we had not left any signaling equipment with our creations, save for the Crystal eyes. But you were not evolved enough yet to have unlocked quantum tunneling.

Then one of our scientists was struck by a great idea. We had forgotten about the architect project. The project was simple. We left one of our greatest scientist behind on a world for you to discover. We had also left behind a partially finished structure capable of creating quantum tunnels.

But we had no way of signaling you to help us. Once again, one of our scientists had an idea. We should use one of our projection orbs to create a message. We then could fire the orb through one of the rifts in the dark hollow, one that lead to your galaxy. Then you could help us.

The orb entered the rift and from what it seems, it reached you. However, time is of the essence. Our shields are slowly draining and if they fail. We will surely be destroyed. So head to these coordinates and Spode be with you.

XXX

Naran looked at the coordinates and gasped. They were the coordinates for Omega-89. The portal was buried on Omega-89. "All hands, were warping to Omega-89. Its time to free our creators."

XXX

The ships arrived at Omega-89. After briefly explaining the situation to the local authorities, they were granted the O.K. to enter the atmosphere of the highly secretive world.

The drop ships tore through a cloud bank and landed on a plateau high up in one of the many mountain ranges on the planet. The second it landed, Naran dashed towards the center of the plateau, the sphere in hand.

He stopped right were the coordinates led to and stood still, ignoring the freezing winds blasting the top of the plateau. He looked at the ground and noticed a slight dip in one area. He set the sphere down and to his surprise, it made a clicking noise were he set it.

He quickly back pedaled to the drop ships and watched in amazement as the Vorchian relay/cryo chamber erupted from the ground. He walked to the entrance and beckoned for his squad to follow.

They strode through the rather small interior of the room to the cryotube at the center of the room. Naran wasted no time and opened it.

Even though crystal eyes are tall, Vorchians were still taller by several feet. The Vorchian scientist stared at Naran "You, you are crystal eyes, I remember helping create you in the labs, but who are the creatures that stand next to you.".

"These creatures are of two races, that one is called a Drelock and the other is called a Verlocken. Our species created them." Naran replied. "Curious, what do you do you do?" the vorchian said gesturing at the Verlocken.

"Oh, my race does things like assassinations, stealth work, sniping, piloting, black Ops, the like." the Verlocken said.

"And you?" he said pointing at the Drelock. "Everything sir, but we excel at being shock troops." the drelock replied.

The vorchian nodded satisfied. "Well, we have no time to lose. We must repair the array."

XXX

The vorchian, along with Naran and co. had managed to finish the array and were now in orbit, waiting to see the portal. The array activated and the beam fired from the planet, hitting an area of space just past Omega-89's orbital structures.

Naran watched amazed as space warped and tore. Then he could see the dark hollow, a howling mass of shadow that threatened to spill out and destroy the entire galaxy. The tunnels energy was keeping the archon at bay and then, the ships appeared.

Thousands of them, massive ships that bristled with weapons and even dwarfed the Hammer of Spode. As if he was reading Naran's mind, the vorchian asked "You know, if you want to make the Hammer of Spode the best warship you have, let me and the vorchain engineers work on it for a couple hours. Will have it ready in no time."

Naran nodded and then thought about all the possibilities now that the Vorchians had returned. Things are definitely looking up, he thought. Soon, the Grox will burn.

XXX

This chapter was long, I know. But it does explain a lot. Please leave a review.


	20. Archangel

Welcome back.

XXX

Naran was in a good mood. The Vorchians had just returned and it looked like they were here to stay. They would be a great asset in the war. But as the ancient creature was talking, time seemed to slow down to a crawl.

"He is not real you know." A voice said.

Naran looked around wildly for the speaker "Show your self."

"As you wish" The voice said.

A figure came striding out of the shadows. A vorchian in full battle armor stared at Naran.

"Another vorchian? What do you mean by he is fake?" Naran asked incredulously.

"First things first, I am not here, not really. I am projecting a solid hologram of myself to you. Second, that is not a vorchian, it is a grox infiltrator."

"What? How is can you tell? It sure looks like a vorchian." Naran said.

"There are several things that give it away. By the way, that is not a vorchian fleet. It's a grox raider fleet. Anyways, one, the symbols on his armor are wrong. They do not correspond with our style of writing at all. Two, our world ships are a lot larger and there are fewer of them. Also, they are a lot more sleeker and aerodynamic looking."

"Third, we have never stopped monitoring you race. Why would he ask about your creations if we already know about them? Lastly, if his armor is really vorchian armor, it will withstand your blade hitting it."

Naran nodded "Well, thanks... I guess. Were are the Vorchians anyways tight now?"

"We are at the other end of the universe currently. Even with our advanced warp engines, our scientists have concluded that it would take us a whole year to arrive, so we are of no military use to you." The vorchian hologram concluded.

"Wait, why wait to contact us? Why now?" Naran asked

"Well, now was a good time to intervene. Also, it is not the easiest thing in the world to project a hologram all the way from the other side of the universe . It takes a while to set up an uplink." The hologram said. "Now then. You have an infiltrator to kill."

"Wait, what will I call you?" Naran asked. "Call me archangel."

XXX

Time returned to its normal speed. The false ancient in front of him was still chatting with the crew. "Stop! Do not speak another word to that imposter!" Naran cried. The infiltrator looked uneasy for a second, but quickly hid it under a look of bewilderment. "Imposter?" he said.

"That's right, imposter, if you are a real vorchian, you will survive this." Naran crossed the distance quickly and impaled the infiltrator with his shock blade, lifting him up in the air at the same time.

The body faded back to what it was originally, a grox infiltrator, now very, very dead. "How did you figure that out sir?" one of the crew asked. "I will explain that later, right now, we just have to sit back and enjoy the fireworks." Naran replied.

"Fireworks, sir?" "Yes soldier, fireworks. What the grox fleet does not realize is that the Hammer of Spode is actually only twenty four hours away from being completed. While its hyperspace drive is not finished at the moment, its sub light engines are online. Also, as the Grox are about to find out, its weapon systems are fully operational!" Naran said.

The comms officer patched them in to the grox network right as the main laser cannon on board the Hammer opened fire. Screams from the Grox vessels were cut short as the massive beam burned them from existence. Then the magnetohydrodynamics cannon, along with the rail guns and the other weapons, opened fire. That's when it went really bad for the Grox.

Of the one hundred and fifty ships that had set out, only three escaped, all of them heavily damaged. Naran smiled, the Hammer was more powerful than he thought. He had better tell Marius about it.

Naran jumped as archangel appeared next to him "Nice work admiral, every Grox you kill brings their empire closer to destruction.". Naran nodded "Is this going to be one of those things were only I can see you?" "No, your crew is just stunned to see me so their quiet, return to what you were doing."

Marius's face appeared on screen and he gasped. "Naran, is that a real vorchian!" Naran shook his head "Sorry sir, its just a holographic projection of one. We thought we had brought them back, but it was just a ruse set by the Grox."

Marius nodded gravely "The Grox are getting smarter, might have to do with their new leader. Well, Naran, that's the way it goes, any more information?" "Yes sir, the hammer is twenty four hours away from being completed, also, she is more powerful than we thought."

"Great! Now, if you have nothing else to say, I need to get back to the battle. It is seriously getting out of hand." And with that, Marius's face disappeared from the screen.

XXX

I am finally getting the hang of this, I think. Please send me a message saying other wise if I am wrong.


	21. The battle for Thar part 4

Well I doubt anyone is still reading this, but I am going to write anyways.

XXX

Marius was observing the battle from his ship. While it was going well, he wanted to be down there. He wanted to be leading his men personally. He wanted to butcher more Grox.

"Khamul, I'm going down there" he declared "Are you sure commander?" "You bet I am"

Marius teleported down and jogged over to the command post that had been erected. "Colonel, what is the status of the battle" He asked. "Sir, we have discovered that the Grox have planted a psionic bomb underneath are lines. Every team that we have sent down there has perished." "Well, I will lead the next team myself." Marius stated matter of factly.

"Are you sure? The underground tunnels down there are starting to flood with water from the breached water and sewer lines." The colonel replied. "I understand that. Get me your best assault team."

XXX

Marius looked over the assault team. Several Crystal Eyes special forces, Four Drelock shock troops, and Two Geritani commandos for the underwater bits. While the other troops had re-breathing equipment and could move fairly well underwater, The Geritani could breath down there forever and could move much better.

The team quickly entered the tunnel system. It was dark but thanks to the crystal eyes evolution, they could switch to heat vision whenever they wanted. The team approached one of the flooded areas and swam through it quietly. They entered a massive area that had probably once been a station for the Tharians version of the subway. In the middle of the room lay the bomb.

Before the Grox could even look at the team, several of them were hitting the floor dead. As the team pressed forward, Marius took a quick glance at the timer. It read around two minutes until detonation. "Cover me, I'm going in to diffuse it!" He shouted.

He quickly took the panel off of it and began to look at the wiring. "Need any help?" someone said next to him. Marius looked over and saw that it was the Vorchian known as archangel. "Your familiar with this type of bomb?" Marius asked. Archangel nodded " Near the end of our war with the Grox, we created several prototypes. We never used them though, we felt that weapons that actually killed the Grox worked better than ones that only incapacitated them"

Marius began to snip at the wires that Archangel pointed out to him "By the way, how are you projecting yourself to me? You were with Naran and you told him that it took forever to project yourself here."

Archangel pointed out a few more wires to snip "I meant it took forever to find this galaxy and set up an uplink. Once I am here, I can easily talk to anyone, any were in this galaxy. Like earlier I was talking to your engineers about how to properly create the Hammer of Spode" Marius finished cutting the last wire.

"Now Marius, Before I go, why don't you try giving the Grox a taste of their own medicine with that bomb." and with that, Archangel disappeared.

XXX

The bomb had been moved underneath the Grox lines and Marius and co. had returned to the surface. A great flash of light and the Grox fell unconscious.. "Charge!" Marius roared. One of the nearby soldiers pulled out a horn and began to play a song the sounded very familiar to the US cavalry charge.

The CEA forces charged, quickly killing the unconscious Grox. Marius quickly looked at the tactical map built into his helmets heads up display and noticed that only his sector was charging forward. "Everyone move, up that is an order!"

He looked back at the map and gasped. The Grox had detonated several other, non psionic bombs and had rolled the front line back. Now Marius and his troops were surrounded and cut off.

The Grox suddenly returned with a vengeance. "I get it now" Marius said to himself "It was a trap. Every battle that we have fought here, we were allowed to win". The Grox were crumbling his lines fairly easily. It was obvious that they had kept the bulk of their troops back throughout the whole battle.

"Khamul, we need extraction now!" Marius shouted. "Negative, teleport blockers just came online. A large amount of Grox ships just came out of nowhere, all ships are engaged!". Marius swore " Can you get me any one to pick us up?" "Sir, the only ships that we could possibly get is the Starlen Commodore Aster Saphiren" "I don't care what you do, or how you do it, get her to pick us up!"

XXX

It had been five minutes since Marius had called for evac and things had been steadily going south. His units were collected in one area and were getting hammered by artillery fire. All of his electronic beacons had broken so now they were using green flares to mark their position to ships orbiting.

The screech of drop ships shook Marius out of his thoughts. He looked up and saw several Starlen drop ships land. "Marines, we are leaving!" Marius shouted. The troops piled into the drop ships and the ships scorched the ground as they took off speedily.

XXX

Marius was in the hangar of Aster's ship. Him and his troops were going to be transferred back to the Inheritor in minute but first, he was going to talk to Aster. He walked up to the elevator and pressed the button for the bridge.

When the lift finally arrived at the bridge, Marius did not waste a second. He dashed forward on to the bridge. He looked around briefly and then walked up to the Starlen who appeared to be in charge.

"Commodore Aster, I would like to thank you for the evac. You saved a lot of lives down there, including my own." Marius said. Aster simply nodded "Your welcome, now, who exactly are you and were did your race come from" She asked quizzacly. " I will explain all after the battle. I need to get back to my ship."

Aster nodded and turned back to the computer screen. Marius walked off.

XXX

Finally got a new chapter. Please review.


	22. The Orbital Corp

Two chapters in one day. Count your blessings. This is an informational chapter, however.

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During the war that the CEA had dubbed The Tesseract War, it was becoming clear that an elite team would need to be formed to handle combat situations a lot more quickly. Such a team would need to be deployed from orbit quickly. That team was to be the CEA orbital corp.

The Orbital corps needed the best equipment that the CEA could possibly give them. Below is a list of their current equipment.

Aeon Combat Harness: The most advanced combat harness ever designed by the CEA. Not only does it amplify strength and speed and have power shields, it can enter the atmosphere easily. Miniature thrusters built into various areas on the suit allow for easy maneruving during reentry or in a zero G environment. The thrusters can also be used to slide across solid surface easily. The suit also has an advanced computer suite on board and has two shoulder mounted plasma cannons(Kind of like the ones in AVP). It also has an anti gravity jet pack.

The reason the suit is so expensive is because of one thing. The suit has active repair nanites on it. This allows the suit to self repair itself. Obviously technology like this does not come cheap. Nevertheless, five thousand suits have been manufactured.

T-654 Armored suit: A large armored suit inspired by the armored mechs created by their allies, the Salpax. The suit is fairly easy to operate. Walk over, get in the cockpit and start steering it. The operators of the suit wear the standard combat harness, however, to cut back on costs. The weapons on board the ships include two tri matter cannons on both hands, four in all, Two shoulder mounted laser cannons that fire a continuous beam and two shoulder mounted, rapid fire tri matter auto cannons. Currently, two thousand suits have been manufactured.

T-893 Aeon Air Vehicle: A fast, multi role fighter that can be used for everything from strategic bombing to close air support. The ship has the ability to shift from an air vehicle to a powerful land based mech in around ten seconds flat. It can also hover. The weapons on board include A quad barreled, nose mounted Dark Energy cannon, several batteries of exotic matter cannons, Four wing mounted rail guns and one incredibly powerful fusion ball launcher. Once it shift to its land mode, the wing mounted cannons and spinal cannon become shoulder mounted, while everything else sifts to the mechs arms. Currently, five hundred of these fighter have been created.

Orbital Corp MCC: The Orbital Corp mobile command center is the very heart of all orbital corp ground missions. It is a six legged walker that can be dropped from orbit like everything else in the corp. It contains a fully manned combat center and many recon probes that can be launched into space for observation if there are no ships that can do recon. Weapon wise, it has many tri-matter cannons built on its back, a spinal mounted quad barreled railgun and several batteries of mini nuclear missile launchers. It also has power shields. Currently, six exist.

The entire Corp is currently based onboard the Hammer of Spode.

XXX

Like? Hate? Or just passing through. Please review.


	23. Prison Break

I was inspired by Njkillen's story update to continue writing. So here is a new chapter.

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Darkness. Darkness everywhere. Thick and inky, smothering him. The last thing he remembered was being hauled out of a cockpit by Grox soldiers. Were he was now was any ones guess.

He slowly opened his eyes and took in his surroundings. He was in a room, a plain room that was completely empty. He was facing an iris shaped doorway. "Easy, Easy" a voice to his right said. He looked over and saw a chimera soldier staring at him.

He quickly scanned the room to see what other organisms were in here. He saw a pair of Drelock soldier along with several Artlen and Scorpank soldiers staring at him curiously. "Where am I?" he asked.

"Kimplemvora prison." the Chimera soldier said. "What? How! The only prisoners on this rock escaped several hours ago, everyone else was turned into a Grox slave. This place is supposed to be empty" He said. "Well, the more POW's they took, the more they realized that this prison's rooms should not be wasted. We are the second wave of prisoners." The Soldier said glumly.

"Well I don't intend to stay here. I think I already have a plan for breaking out." The pilot said. Before the prisoners could respond the pilot began to roar in the ancient Crystal Eyes tongue. Even the translators could not decode it. To the Dronox guards, it sounded like he had gone mad. One of the guards opened the doors and before he could tranquilize the pilot, the pilot threw himself at the guard.

The pilot quickly choked the life out of the guard and picked up guards weapon. "Were did they take our weapons?" the pilot asked. "Probably to lockup. That were all prisoner memorabilia is taken." the Chimera responded. The pilot nodded and began to shoot the panels on the doors.

The prisoners ran out and began to jump the stunned guards. They streamed out of the cell block towards the weapon lockup, murdering any Dronox that got in their way. When they reached the lockup, the pilot grabbed his flight armor, shotgun and SMG and ran to meet up with the rest of the newly armed prisoners.

"Comrades!" he shouted "Are new target is the control center. From there, we can free every prisoner trapped on this miserable rock!". The prisoners roared their approval. "Now, Toward victory!"

XXX

Marius looked down at the prison from orbit. "Khamul, are you seeing this" "Yes sir, I am". "Send some marines down their now. The prisoners will have their freedom"

XXX

The prisoners were now fighting on the walls of the prison. The pilot grabbed a Dronox and threw him off the wall. "We need reinforcements, now!" He shouted. As he dispatched a guard and glanced upwards, hee saw a sight that almost made him cry with happiness. Drop ships, CEA drop ships, coming in hot.

The Guards began throwing themselves off the wall as the Crystal Eyes marines landed. Some surrendered. Others shot them selves or pulled the pins on grenades and blew themselves up.

The pilot smiled. Looks the inmates are running the asylum, He thought.

XXX

I am sorry this is brief, but I really wanted to so a large prison break chapter. Regardless, I am running out of stuff to write for the battle of Thar. I need ideas.


	24. The battle for Thar part 5

I'm back in the saddle again. I deleted chapter 25 because it was pathetic, badly written, too short, and it was impeding me from writing a better chapter that meshed more with TTOT. I would really enjoy some feedback from either the community or the other collab writers.

XXX

War was all too familiar to Marius. He was getting used to the battles and the mayhem and the death. What he was not used to was hearing the whole damm solar system was going to explode because of something to do with that tower that they fired on.

"Its that Artlens fault" he grumbled "If she had just held still and died like a good Grox, we would not be in this mess". Khamul approached Marius "Sir that wasn't even Veara's ship we fired at" "I know, but I still want her dead"

When his crew had stated that the whole solar system was going to blow, he had allowed himself the luxury of a profanity filled rant regarding the Grand Master, Veara, and the Grox race as a whole. All he knew was that he had to save his men. He therefore devised an ingenious plan to save his troops.

The plan was fairly simple. If the tower was channeling dark energy into a catastrophic explosion involving the tesseract, then they would stop it from channeling energy. The most simple way was to knock the tower down with every weapon the ship had. So, that was what they were gonna do.

"Sir, we have friendlies on the tower!" Khamul shouted. Marius looked at the viewscreen and saw that there were indeed several non Grox figures on the tower. "Send them a message Khamul, tell them to get off the tower!" He shouted back.

"Friendlies, this The Inheritor, we are going to knock down the tower you are standing on to prevent it from channeling energy into the tesseract, fire mission danger close!" Khamul transmitted.

Before the got any response however, a massive impact hit the flank of the ship. "What in Spode's name was that?!" Marius shouted. "Sir, its that upgraded Grox raider vessel. We didn't see her!" Khamul exclaimed.

Marius knew deep down that the raider vessel that had just shot his ship was the Grand Master's. Call it intuition or a gut felling, but he was pretty sure that the vessel was carrying the Grand Master.

"After that ship!" He roared. The Inheritor closed in on the raider vessel, but the smaller ship was just too fast. Marius jumped up from his command chair and ran down to the bay tha had the escape pods. "Khamul get me as close as you can. I'm gonna use the pod as a make shift vehicle. "It shall be done" Khamul replied.

As the vehicles drew level with each other, Marius prepared himself grabbing his tri-matter rifle and making sure that his armor was functioning correctly.

The moment arrived. He shot the pod out of its docking bay and as it approached the raider vessel at top speed, he hit the emergency door release on the pod. The pod's door shot off and bounced of the cockpit of the vessel, severely damaging the glass.

Marius threw himself against the window and used his thruster pack to do a slight course correction. His weight slammed into the vessel and he opened fir on the occupants. The shots tore apart one Grox pilot and wounded the other.

Even though almost all of Marius shots were concentrated on the Grand Master, they had no effect. The leader of the Grox even looked a little bored. He simply lifted up a heft looking weapon, pointed it lazily at Marius's solar plexus, and pulled the trigger.

The shot hit Marius dead on. It blew him straight of the vessel, down into the streets below.

XXX

Marius woke up painfully in the ruins of some apartment building, street level. He coughed up a strange mixture of ash and blood which was whisked away by his helmet. He quickly tossed his helmet off and looked down at the source of the pain that was beginning to spread.

What he saw astonished hime. Whatever the grandmaster had shot had cracked his shields, boiled off the reactive coating, overloaded the power dampening crystals and punched straight through his armor. He hissed in pain as he realized that the armor was burning him. He quickly tossed of the ruined chest plate.

He also realized that the blast had melted the medi gel injectors that were built into his suit. He reached down to the compartment on his leg piece and grabbed an injector. The medi gel would help keep circulation flowing between whatever organs were still intact in his stomach.

He lifted his helmet off the ground and put it back on "Khamul" he said gritting his teeth in pain "I need evac, now." "Roger Marius, we saw you fall, hold on down there."

Marius heard the sounds of foot soldiers coming towards his position. Millennia of fighting the Grox had taught him what they sounded like. He cast around for a weapon and to his surprise, he found his rifle still intact. He lifted it just in time.

A Dronox soldier walked over to the entrance of the building. The last thing he saw was Marius pointing his weapon at him. The blast of tri matter caught the unlucky trooper in the face, blowing his head clean off.

Marius kept shooting. As his strength began to wane, the remaining grox were torn to shreds by lasers fired from the approaching drop ship. The doors on the side opened and Khamul ran out. He supported Marius by the shoulder "Glad we made it!" he shouted. Marius nodded "Me too, I need medical attention" he began to feel the world swirl and passed out.

XXX

Marius was lying on his back in the medical bay of The Inheritor. He had requested, once he regained his senses of course, that he remain awake so he could discuss plans with Khamul.

"So there is absolutely no way to escape the system?" Marius asked "No sir, we won't make it". Marius swore softly "So what can we do Khamul?". Khamul looked at him "We can help that team of aliens we saw at the top of the tower, they seem to be doing something important for the war effort."

Marius nodded thoughtfully. While he did not fully trust these strange aliens, it was their best shot at survival. "Alright, we'll help clear a path for them. Doctor, when I am combat operational?" Marius asked. "You need at least an hour before you can even be thought fit for combat. That blast turned most of your digestive track into ash. Your lucky we had a few cloned organs lying around."

Marius shook his head "Out of the question, I just need some extra medi gel and a new set of armor and I am good to go." he argued. The doctor new it was not wise to argue with Marius, he would go down there no matter what. "Alright sir, but one thing before you go. That blast should have killed you instantly."

Marius stared at the doctor "What do you suppose kept me alive?" He asked. The doctor shrugged "I don't know"

XXX

Finally, a long chapter that I put time into. I really want reviews at this point. Also, I would enjoy getting some feedback from the other collab writers. Please guys, it really keeps me going.


	25. A new ally

Alright, please excuse me for the mega delay. I have not had much time to write, plus I could not really get a chapter out that seemed satisfactory. I am ready now though. Enjoy.

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The battle was over. In one brilliant flash, the Grox troops had been scoured off the face of the planet. The life giving energies of Anu rushed over the weary soldiers, soothing and rejuvenating them.

However, this was no time for celebration. Fleets needed to be organized, soldiers gathered, damages repaired. The final battle was approaching and soon the Aeron Alliance would march straight into the mouth of the beast.

Marius had recovered partially and was sitting up right now discussing the current plan of attack.

"Its obvious that the Tharian and his motley crew have put together a plan to end this war. The question is how are we going to be of the most assistance. Personally, I think if we bring our ships in, were going to take heavy losses. However, we will finally be rid of the accurse grox."

"Commander Marius, we do not have the Altimer abilities they do. Should they not take point in the assault?"

"Their abilities may be fantastic, but we will lead the charge in. We might not have incredible powers, but we will win this battle like we have won every past battle, with grit, determination, force of arms and courage. The grox will die at our hands."

"Of course. Now I want you to broadcast a message to our newfound allies, tell them that we our willing to lend aid to their cause, any assistance we can offer-"

Marius was cut off by a beep from the console nearby.

"Sir, Grox ship entering gravity well. Its Talus's ship! Strange, I am only reading one life form aboard" Khamul shouted. "He's trying to open a channel with us!"

Marius was more intrigued than angry. Why would Talus come here on his own, after the battle was over. More importantly, why was he the only one on his ship.

"Open it."

The video screen flickered and Talus's face appeared.

Marius was shocked. Talus's looked horrible. The grox had not slept in what appeared to be days and his armor was dented. His cloak was slashed and deep scratches ran down his face.

"Hello Marius, would you mind letting me chat a bit, face to face?"

XXX

Though Marius was curious about Talus's plight, he had brought a security detail with him. Currently they were sitting across from each other in the ships messhall.

"Alright Talus, start at the beginning. What happened to you?"

"I was betrayed, betrayed by the Empire I had fought so hard for. In the end, it amounted for nothing. How could I have not foreseen what would happen?"

"After my team failure to destroy the Hammer of Spode, we were recalled back to the capital planet. The rest of the ships in my battle group were sent to help in the Battle of Thar, but my own ship and crew were impounded."

"For hours I was left in a room to wait for a debriefing. I got grim news from the battle. Your fleet had arrived and blasting its way to the surface. Then several hours later, I hear about how Veara gets freed and that every grox on the field lay dead."

"Then, as I am sitting there writing a note. I hear some one charging a weapon behind me. I whirled around, lept, and slew him. Drawing my claws from his body, I noticed he was another Grox."

"That's when I understood why I was sent on so many suicide missions. My Crystal Eyes DNA had over time become 50/50 with my Grox DNA. I was seen as a freak, a mutant. Obviously the Grand Master knew he could kill two birds with one stone. Get rid of a mutant and the only one who could object to his plans."

"For I was no longer a creature of darkness like most Grox. I was now partially a creature of light thanks to your DNA. Therefore I was not fully indoctrinated when he took the reins of the Empire. I could sense the evil within our leader, but I was blinded by visions of glory. Visions of our empire being so great a powerful, burning a bright new future for our race. I did not know that we were simple tools."

"I fought to my ship, and I realized as I ran that my crew had probably been killed also. However, me and my teammates during our war against you had been taught how to fly a Grox battleships single handily. I punched the accelerator and rocketed out of there."

Talus's head drooped wearily

"So much. I have sacrificed so much to fight for an empire that tossed me aside like a broken toy. At first, I did not know what I would do. But then it became clear, my empire, my people, our enslaved by this Agriath. I might be only half grox now, but I will fight to free my race. Besides, being half Crystal Eyes has its benefits. I can live on any world now, be it T0 or T3, am immune to the staff of life, and I can regenerate much quicker now."

Marius looked at him.

"Is this why you have come then, to fight alongside your former enemies?"

Talus nodded.

"Marius, I have been an outcast for the last several Eons. After the memory wipe, I was seen as a psycho, a mutant who remembers a war that no one else does. I had seen untold numbers of people perish, only for that to be erased. And then to see the empire collapse, break into feuding warlord groups who promoted a life style of self indulgence and hedonism that made me wretch. I mean for Spodes sake one of the warlords turned a human girl into a grox so that she could be his plaything. And she liked it! Damm it all, it broke my heart."

"So when the Grand Master did arrive, you can see why I was blinded. Our indulgent, sinful way of life was blasted away for an era of discipline and martial skill. It was all I had hoped for. But it was a lie wasn't it?"

"So I will fight to free my kind from this despot. Revenge and freedom Marius, those are my reasons."

Marius nodded "Then you will have your wish, have your ship fall in line with us, you will be going in with the vanguard of the assault. I will message the commander of the Alliance about it."

Talus nodded and walked off to the transporter room.

"Khamul." Marius said. "Send a personal message to this Tharian, Roku I believe? Tell him that we will fly escort for him. We must protect this band of irregulars, I have a feeling their the only ones who can end this war."

XXX

Whew, feels good to write again. Reviews always help me out. The final showdown will be coming soon, brace yourselves.


	26. A Conversation Between Marius and Talus

Another Chapter

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A few hours after having Talus's ship get in formation, Marius and Talus were sitting down discussing strategy. At the moment, the two were discussing the defenses that the Grox capital had, as well as the remains of the ancient destroyed home world.

"So Talus, tell me what defenses Xorgo and Groxia have." Marius asked.

"Besides a massive battle group know as battle group center, the planets themselves are carrying immense ground based firepower. Anti-Matter Missile launchers, Dark Matter beam cannons, you name it they have it. If that was not bad enough, they have freaking ground based shield systems to protect the planets from orbital bombardment."

"However, every defense has a weakness. In Xorgo's case, it's the planet itself. You might recall that its literally just chunks of rubble held together by energy beams. Funny story actually, the larger chunks are actually inhabited, but I digress."

"Now, if you managed to hit the generators powering the system, the resulting overload would cause a catastrophic detonation that would torch most of the chunks and send the others hurtling into deep space."

"Groxia does not have these weaknesses. Its even protected by several orbital defense platforms locked in orbit above major cities to protect them from orbital bombardment. But, if you can land troops there and take out the reactors..."

"We can turn those platforms into kinetic missiles that will obliterate the cities underneath" Marius finished.

"Precisely, the only problems are the shields. You will have to overload them somehow. And then of course, there is the other problem of the battle group itself." Talus said

"I'm sure that Commodore Aster has a plan, I hope." Marius stated

"By the way Marius, what do you think of these new found allies of yours?" Talus queried

"I don't know. I feel as if they are suspicious of us. It might be because they have never heard of us until a few weeks ago. Not to mention our military and technology levels rival the Tharians. There is also the issue that every time an explorer ship from an empire entered our area, we would jam communications and then destroy it."

"As for this motley crew the Tharian has assembled, they seem to do well enough on the battlefield, however, there is a few I have some doubts about."

"That Artlen, I don't know if I trust her. Not in the sense of her still being possessed, but in the sense if she is emotionally stable. She might have some issues, and the last thing I need on the battlefield is someone who is unstable."

Talus nodded "I understand completely. Don't forget she is young, by your species standards at least. Sure she has experience butchering, but now that she has been freed, will she have the strength to use her skills. And then there is the fact that she seems to have feelings for this Roku fellow."

Marius nodded warily "It's a little strange. But they can have mutant cat bird hybrid children for all I care. I need them to be strong during this battle. Nothing else matters. Of course I don't know how she feels about the Crystal Eyes. She was part of the Grox long after the war ended so she does not know about us. Perhaps she has doubts about us."

Talus nodded "I never did like her when she was in the Grox Empire, she might not like me because of my species, but then again no on likes me." He laughed.

Marius smiled "Were the old men of the fleet Talus, we will have to show some of these hotshots how its done."

Talus made an affirmative gesture "Of course. But back to the subject. Is this Artlen capable of fighting, she seems vulnerable. Of course I don't pity her, I lost the ability to pity long ago. She had best be able to."

"And if she tries anything funny, I'm gonna put her in the ground" Marius growled "I don't think she will, but she had best get that furry butt of hers up to the front line like everyone else. I think she will."

Marius leaned forward "Talus, keep this between the two of us, but I sense resentment from some of the captains in this alliance. We are not loved. Best watch how we talk to the group Roku formed. I sense they don't trust my kind, let alone a rogue like you."

Talus nodded "Aye, perhaps they feel that we will betray them or some such stuff. And Roku is very protective of that Artlen now, we best watch what we say about her in public"

Marius snorted "I will say what I think of her in public. Its not insulting, I just feel that she is emotionally vulnerable right now. I will not take orders from them unless its straight from the Commodore. She is the commander of this fleet. We'll, technically she is, I still retain command of my fleet. She can tell me were to go and I will judge if it's a priority target. Fortunately I have a lot of ships at my disposal so I can multitask."

Talus once again nodded "So lets summarize. We are not sure if the Artlen is in fighting shape, we feel that the other captains in the fleet do not trust us, is that about it?"

"Yes. It would seem so. Would you mind passing a message along to the Artlen?" Marius asked.

"Not at all, what is it?" Talus asked.

"Tell her that she must fight to the best of her abilities in the coming battle. Also, that I don't care who she is or what her past is, I just need her to put some enemies in their graves. Got it?"

"Got it."


End file.
